Poems 



x>r«e D. Prentice 






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THE POEMS 



GEORGE D. PRENTICE 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



BY JOHN JAMES PIATT 




s 



CINCINNATI 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
1876 






Copyright, 1875, by 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 



Ogden, Campbell & Co., 
Electrotypers. 






DEDICATION. 



TO PyUJJ- R. £HIPMy\N, EpQ. 

BEVERLY, N.J. 



My Dear Shipman : 

I take great pleasure in inscribing this volume 
to jou, and thus connecting jour name newly with that of 
jour old associate and friend. But for jou I should, perhaps, 

never have known him mjself ; and but for jou 1 think j'ou 

will understand what I can not here saj. 

Sincerely jours, 

J- J- P- 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Biographical Sketch, . vir 

The Closing Year, . . . 49=- 

At My Mother's Grave, 53 

The River in the Mammoth Cave, 55 

To an Absent Wife, 58 

Harvest Hymn, 60 

An Infant's Grave, 62 

The Isle and the Star, 64 

The Bouquet's Compliments, 66 

The Dead Mariner, 6S 

The Stars, 70 

Our Childhood, 72 

To a Young Beauty, 75 

A Name in the Sand, 77 

A Dirge, 79 

Sent with a Rose, 81 

Sabbath Evening, 82 

To a Lady, 85 

On Revisiting Brown University, . 87 

Close of the Year 1S32, 89 

Anniversary of a Friend's Wedding, 92 

Memories, 94 

Mammoth Cave, . 96 

To Sue, 100 

On a Warm Day near the Close of Winter, .... 102 

A Wish, 104 

To the Daughter of an Old Sweetheart, 105 

The Grave of the Beautiful, 107 

My Heart is with Thee, 109 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

My Mother, II2 

Mary, n 7 

To a Bunch of Roses, „ . no 

A Night in June, I2 o 

Lines to a Lady, 123 

Birthday Reflections, 124 

The Invalid's Reply, 127 

Come to Me in Dreams, 132 

To Rosa, 134 

A Memory, 137 

The Flight of Years, 139 

To a Beautiful Authoress, 145 

Henry Clay, 148 

My Old Home, 151 

Night in Cave Hill Cemetery, . . • 157 

To Miss Sallie M. Bryan, 163 

Fannie, . . . 166 

A Farewell, 169 

Young Adelaide, 171 

A Night Scene, 172 

Raphael to Julia 174 

The Parting, 176 

Lucy Merrill, 178 

To Marian Prentice Piatt, . . 180 

The Deathday of William Courtland Prentice, .... 182 

Elegiac, 186 

Lines to Alice McClure Griffin, 189 

Lookout Mountain, . 190 

To a Political Opponent, 194 

On a Book: of Verses, 196 

Violets, 198 

Thoughts on the Far Past, 200 

To Little Vikgilie Griffin, 203 

On the Summit of the Sierra Madre, 205 

New England, 20S 

On the Unveiling of the Clay Statue, . . . . . 210 

Address on the Opening of a New Theater, . , . . .213 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE was born 
upon a farm in the township of Preston, New 
London county, Connecticut, December 18, 1S02. He 
was the second of two sons, the only children of his 
parents. His father, Rufus Prentice, was a man of fair 
average English education, and his mother, Sarah Stan- 
ton, is said to have had some literary culture and taste. 
George D. had reached manhood before his father's 
death, which took place in July, 1826 ; but his mother 
died during his boyhood, in November, 18 16. An in- 
teresting and affecting record of her death may be found 
in his blank-verse poem, entitled " My Mother," printed 
in this volume. His tender and mournful regret for her 
is also indicated in the more familiar lines, "At my 
Mother's Grave," which, I believe, were writtten be- 
fore he entered college. She taught him to read in the 
Bible at a very early age, and gave him religious im- 
pressions which, I know, lasted throughout his life. 
Mr. Prentice, one of whose earliest distinct recollections 
was of the total eclipse of the sun in 1806, as he once 
told me, remembered also to have read several chap- 



viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

ters of the Bible on the day of that eclipse, when he 
was not quite three-and-a-half years old. His brother, 
fourteen months his senior, who is still living, relates 
that the neighbors visiting his father and mother, were 
in the habit of asking to hear George read, and that 
among them it was a common w T onder so small a boy 
should read so well. Young Prentice's school experi- 
ence began at a country school-house, before he had 
completed his fourth year ; he showed remarkable pre- 
cocity in mastering the common English branches. His 
father's means were small, it seems, and between his ninth 
and fourteenth years he was kept at work upon the farm — 
though somewhat delicate, doing a man's faithful serv- 
ice ; but, his parents having meanwhile decided to give 
him a collegiate education, he was then placed under the 
instruction of a Presbyterian minister, previously a tutor 
at Yale, and in six months made such extraordinary pro- 
gress in classical and other studies that he was fitted to 
enter any New England college of the time. During 
this marvelous half year, he began and completed the 
study of English grammar, having Lindley Murray by 
heart, within five days ; he then, for the first time, took 
up a Latin grammar. In a biographical sketch (written 
by Mr. Henry Watterson, I believe, from an auto-bio- 
graphic note left by Mr. Prentice) published in the Louis, 
v-ille Courier-Journal the morning after Mr. Prentice's 
death, is the following statement, referring to this period : 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ix 

" He and two boys from South Carolina, one of them of 
his own age and the other two years older, were the cler- 
gyman's only pupils. His companions had each studied 
Latin two years, chiefly in their native State. They 
were in Virgil. In five weeks he caught up with the 
elder and more advanced, and the teacher, to save him- 
self trouble, instructed {he two to learn their lessons to- 
gether, and recite them together. This was very annoy- 
ing to young Prentice, for he found his comrade, the 
son of a wealthy planter, dull and slow. He remon- 
strated with his teacher, who, after a little burst of anger, 
gave him leave to go ahead in his own way. He went 
ahead. He recited the whole of the Twelfth Book of 
the yEneid, as a single half-day's lesson, to the Rev. 
Daniel Waldo, the uncle of his regular teacher, and 
extensively known, a few years ago, as the venerable 
Chaplain of Congress, who died, we believe, at the age 
of more than a hundred. He completed the study of 
Virgil, Horace, Sallust, Cicero's Orations, the Greek 
Testament, Xenophon, six books of Homer's Iliad, the 
Grceca Minora, most of the Grasca Majora, and other 
works, within six months after his first introduction to 
English grammar." But lacking the means necessary 
for beginning a college life, he now turned his attention 
to teaching, and, not yet fifteen, took charge of a village 
school, which he continued to teach for about two years. 
In the Autumn of 1820, he entered the Sophomore class 



X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

at Brown University, where he so distinguished himself 
as a student, that Dr. Asa Messer, President of the Col- 
lege, pronounced him the best scholar who had ever 
been in the institution. Here he exhibited the same re- 
markable power of memory manifested during his pre- 
paratory course of study ; it is stated, on Mr. Prentice's 
own authority, that he could recite verbatim the whole 
of Karnes's " Elements of Criticism," Blair's "Rhetoric," 
and Dugald Stewart's " Mental Philosophy." He be- 
came hardly less proficient in mathematics than in the 
ancient classics and modern literature. Among his tutors 
at Brown were Horace Mann and Tristam Burges, both 
afterwards distinguished in different spheres of public 
life and action. One of his college-mates was Dr. 
Samuel C. Howe, the well-known American philan- 
thropist — and their early friendship continued throughout 
Mr. Prentice's life. 

Having graduated, in 1823, Mr. Prentice taught in 
a seminary at Smithfield, for a time, in order to earn 
money sufficient for pursuing the study of law, which 
he began at Canterbury, and continued at Jewett, two 
Connecticut villages not far from his birth-place ; but 
after his admission to the bar, and perhaps a brief 
experience in the practice of law (not finding it to 
his taste, I dare say), he was drawn, partly by acci- 
dent, into active journalism. He had previously written 
somewhat for the press, I believe. In 1827, on vis- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xi 

iting his friend, John G. C. Brainard, the gentle poet 
of the Connecticut, at New London, he was persuaded 
to take charge of a local journal during its editor's two 
weeks' absence, and made such an impression in that 
time, that several offers were made to secure him as 
editor for various established or projected papers. He 
finally accepted the offer of two gentlemen who pro- 
posed to start a weekly paper at Hartford ; he agreed to 
beccme its editor, and it was called The New England 
Review. Its first number was issued in the Autumn of 
1S2S. It made at once a marked impression in New 
England, on account of both its political and literary 
character. It was the Louisville Journal, born in Con- 
necticut. When its publication was begun, the opposing 
political parties in Connecticut had, in convention, nom- 
inated their Congressional tickets, the State being entitled 
to six Representatives. Not pleased with the candidates 
of his party, Mr. Prentice, upon his own responsibility, 
nominated the six men whom he thought best qualified, 
zealously urged their claims, and, in spite of vehement 
opposition, secured the election of all. This was very 
naturally regarded as a brilliant success. 

In 1S30, Mr. Prentice was induced by the Whigs of 
Connecticut to make a journey to Kentucky, for the pur- 
pose of visiting Ashland and preparing a life of Henry 
Clay. Meanwhile John G. Whittier, the poet, had been 
attracted, by the brightness, popular reputation and liter- 



xii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

ary quality of The New England Review, to send some 
of his early poems as contributions to its columns ; these 
had been published by Mr. Prentice, and so well liked 
by him that on leaving Hartford for Kentucky he recom- 
mended Mr. Whittier — then living at his father's house 
in Haverhill, Mass. — as a proper successor ; and the latter 
was surprised one morning to receive a letter from the 
proprietors of The New England Review, asking his 
acceptance of the position. Mr. Whittier accepted it at 
once ; but he had never met Mr. Prentice — they were 
strangers personally — and they did not afterwards meet 
each other, though Mr. Prentice, I know, always admired 
and honored the good Quaker poet of Amesbury, and 
the latter, I am sure, must always have remembered 
the generous compliment of Mr. Prentice. 

The absence of Mr. Prentice from New England, 
when he came to Kentucky in 1830, was intended to be 
temporary ; it was, so to speak, life-long. The biography 
of Henry Clay was designed simply for campaign uses 
in New England : it was written hastily from the stand- 
point of ardent partisanship, and it fulfilled its purpose ; 
directly or indirectly, however, it served to make Mr. 
Prentice a citizen of Kentucky, for he had scarcely fin- 
ished his task when he was persuaded, in connection with 
a gentleman from Ohio, to undertake the establishment 
of a new daily paper at Louisville, in opposition to the 
Jackson Democracy, who were purposing and planning 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiii 

to carry against Mr. Clay his own adopted State. Mr. 
Prentice's preface to the life of Henry Clay was dated 
November 14, 1830, and on the 24th of the same month 
the first number of the Louisville Journal appeared. 

The newspaper of course at once became a warm 
political supporter of Mr. Clay, between whom and Mr. 
Prentice had begun an intimate personal friendship, which 
ended only with the former's death. The Louisville 
Journal soon began to attract attention, particularly by its 
peculiar short, sharp, epigrammatic paragraphs, which, 
as a general thing, flew to their mark like arrows — they 
were the winged words so often mentioned by Homer. 

It seemed a hazardous thing for a stranger, and es- 
pecially, perhaps, a " Yankee schoolmaster," as Mr. 
Prentice was called — on whom, I fancy, the Kentuckian 
in those old days was inclined to look, as Halleck pic- 
tures the Virginian doing, 

" with as favorable eyes 

As Gabriel on the devil in Paradise" — 

to attempt such a style of editorial writing as Mr. Pren- 
tice adopted ; but he had the fearless courage — always 
mingled with generosity and good humor — necessary ; 
and, not shrinking from the ordeal, he went through it — 
making enemies often, but generally in the end making 
these enemies, if they were worthy ones, his friends. 
He and Shadrach Penn, an able writer, who, in 1S30, 



xiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

was the recognized editorial champion of the Democratic 
party in Kentucky, conducting the Louisville Advertiser, 
fought bitterly in print for ten or twelve years, when 
the latter, who had been the aggressor, was compel- 
led to leave the field of Kentucky journalism and emi- 
grate to Missouri. But on the eve of his departure an 
interview was arranged between the two long hostile 
editors, by Dr. T. S. Bell, an eminent physician of Louis- 
ville, the friend of both, when Mr. Prentice cordially 
offered every influence in his power to render Mr. Penn's 
removal unnecessary ; it being inevitable, he gave Mr. 
Perm his warm Gocl-speed privately and in print. Mr. 
Penn established a new paper at St. Louis, but lived only 
four years afterwards, during which time he and Mr. 
Prentice remained personal friends. On Mr. Penn's 
death, his old editorial enemy wrote a very tender and gen- 
erous eulogy of him. He did the same thing, much more 
recently, after the death of John H. Harney, for many 
years editor of the Louisville Democrat, between whom 
and Mr. Prentice a similar war of words was waged. 
But paper bullets were not the only editorial missiles 
used in Kentucky. Mr. Prentice was never disposed to 
seek a personal -collision with anybod}', but others were 
sometimes quick to attack him — not always, perhaps, 
without verbal aggravation, direct or indirect. Nearly 
all his personal encounters, I believe, ended with grace 
for himself. One particular affair of this kind is recorded, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, xv 

when a Kentucky editor named Trotter fired at Mr. 
Prentice on the street in Louisville, without warning, and 
wounded him near the heart. Mr. Prentice in a moment 
seized his assailant, threw him to the ground, and, with 
a knife given him by a spectator, in one hand, held him 
down with the other. "Kill him! kill him!" numbers 
of the crowd, which at once assembled, shouted- But 
Mr. Prentice instantly loosened his hold, saying, " I 
can not kill a disarmed and helpless man." Mr. Pren- 
tice was never, I believe, a party in any duel, and as 
early as 1854 he put on record his opinion of duelling so 
clearly and emphatically that I think it worth repeating. 
He had gone to Arkansas, to lend his influence toward 
some large railroad enterprise in that State, writing while 
there, for a Little Rock paper, articles in behalf of the 
scheme. One of these articles referred, somewhat 
pointedly, to arguments in opposition to the railroad 
enterprise published by a man named Hewson, who 
took offense at Mr. Prentice's expressions, and demanded 
their public withdrawal. Mr. Prentice answered that he 
was only criticising Hewson's writings, and disclaimed 
any intended imputation on his character or conduct. 
Hewson insisted on the unconditional withdrawal of the 
offensive expressions, intimating that otherwise Mr. 
Prentice would be expected to meet him in the field. 
Mr. Prentice repeated his disclaimer, adding : 



xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

lt I do not recognize any right or reason, on your part, to ask 
or expect more of me. This I deem quite as much due to my- 
self as to you. 

" Presuming that your notes are written to me with a view to 
a duel, I may as well say here that I have not the least thought 
of accepting a challenge from you. I consider my strictures 
upon your writings entirely legitimate, and, at any rate, the 
disclaimer that I have made ought to satisfy you. 

"I came here, from a distant State, because many believed I 
could do something to promote a great and important enterprise, 
and as I have reason to think that my labors are not altogether 
in vain, I do not intend to let myself be diverted from them. 
There are some persons, and perhaps many, to whom my life is 
valuable, and, however little or much value I may attach to it on 
my own account, I do not see fit, at present, to put it up volun- 
tarily against yours. 

" 1 am no believer in the duelling code. I would not call a 
man to the field unless he had done me such a deadly wrong that 
I desired to kill him, and I would not obey his call to the field 
unless I had done him so mortal an injury as to entitle him, in 
my opinion, to demand an opportunity of taking my life. I 
have not the least desire to kill 3 r ou, or to harm a hair of your 
head, and I am not conscious of having done anything to entitle 
you to kill me. I do not want your blood upon my hands, and 
I do not want my own upon anybody's. I might yield much t$ 
the demands of a strong public sentiment, but there is no publie 
sentiment, nor even any disinterested individual sentiment, that 
requires me to meet you, or would justify me in doing so. 

"I look upon the miserable code, that is said to require two men 
to go out and shoot at each other for what one of them may con- 
sider a violation of etiquette or punctilio in the use of language, 
with a scorn equal to that which is getting to be felt for it by 
the whole civilized world of mankind. I am not afraid to express 
such views in the enlightened capital of Arkansas, or anywhere 
else. I am not so cowardly as to stand in dread of any imputa- 
tion on my courage. I have always had courage enough to de- 
fend my honor and myself, and I presume I always shall have. 
' < Your most, etc., Geo. D. Prentice." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xvii 

In the spring of 1835, Mr. Prentice married Miss 
Henrietta Benham, daughter of Joseph Benham, then a 
lawyer of some local distinction in Cincinnati and Louis- 
ville. Mrs. Prentice was a native of Ohio. She had 
great beauty of person in her youth, I have understood ; 
in her middle life, when I first saw her, she was still 
fine-looking, having a handsome and attractive face, a 
stately figure, an elegant and gracious manner. With a 
naturally fine intellect, and many accomplishments of ed- 
ucation, she had a heart of unusual sensibility — she could 
not listen without quick visible emotion to any tale of 
distress or suffering, and her charities near home were 
numerous. She enjoyed private distinction in Louisville 
as a singer, having a voice of much power and beauty, 
and showed talent as a composer of music. During her 
life the house of Mr. Prentice was a center of whatever 
was. refined and graceful -in Louisville society, Mrs, 
Prentice being for many years a social leader in that 
city. Mr. and Mrs. Prentice had in all four children, 
two of whom, a son and daughter, died in childhood ; two 
sons, William Courtland and Clarence Joseph, lived 
until manhood. 

I do not care to attempt any minute history of the 
Louisville Journal's long political career. In Mr. Pren- 
tice's hands it was always the most powerful and popular 
exponent of the Whig party in the South and West — 
indeed, for a time, it may be said, in the whole country. 



xviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 

It was for Mr. Prentice himself an engine of great 
personal force and influence. Doubtless, its greatest 
popularity and power were reached between 1840, the 
year of the great Whig triumph in Gen. Harrison's 
election to the Presidency, and i860, when the war of 
the Southern Rebellion began. This period includes the 
Native American, or u Know Nothing" campaign, in 
which it was a zealous advocate of the Native Ameri- 
can doctrine. 

From the first, as I have said, the Louisville Journal 
attracted attention by its witty and epigrammatic para- 
graphs, and the most widely diffused reputation of Mr. 
Prentice, while living, was for the exhaustless wit and 
humor manifested day by day, for many years, in these. 
Only old men, or men now growing old, who were inter- 
ested in the public affairs and persons of those days, and 
recall their atmosphere, know the wonderful vigor, effect, 
and currency of the paragraphs with which the Jour- 
nal's columns bristled, as it were, from fifteen to forty- 
five years ago. They were copied and repeated far and 
wide. They went everywhere. London and Paris pa- 
pers made frequent quotations of them. A volume con- 
taining selections from these paragraphs was published 
in 1S59, entitled Prenticeana (the publisher's title), re- 
printed since Mr. Prentice's death. The volume was 
taken from the files of the Journal up to the date of pub- 
lication. Mr. Prentice had long been urged to make 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xix 

such a collection, but had always declined, until at last it 
became evident that if he did not make it himself, others 
would attempt it, with far less regard for the feelings of 
men formerly his enemies, but then his friends, than he 
chose to exercise. When he finally compiled the volume, 
he carefully excluded, out of deference to the sensibilities 
of persons whom he had come to esteem and love, 
hundreds of the very passages which, at the time of their 
appearance, did most to give the Louisville Journal its 
fame, and suppressed very many of the names of indi- 
viduals in the personal paragraphs retained. The copy 
originally prepared embraced perhaps thrice the matter 
printed in the book. This was submitted to two or three 
friends successively, with the request that each should 
suggest proper omissions, and the publishers were finally 
empowered, I believe, to reduce the collection to the re- 
quirements of the proposed volume ; so, gradually, I am 
afraid, much of the best and most characteristic life passed 
out of the whole body of the book. Many of these 
paragraphs, however, removed from the day's columns, 
where they had the familiar atmosphere of the day 
about them, could hardly preserve the elusive something 
which had been their temporary " excuse for being." Mr. 
Prentice felt this when he wrote, in his modest preface : 
64 1 have no doubt that a very considerable portion of 
them, which, perhaps from partisan partiality, were 
deemed ' good hits' at the time, will, now that the occa- 



xx BICGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

sion which called them forth has passed, be read with 
comparatively little interest. I know that such things do 
not keep well." Enough of them have kept well, how- 
ever, to justify the reputation for abundant wit and humor 
which Mr. Prentice so long enjoyed — enough of them 
worthy to rank with the best good sayings which are 
quoted from Hook, and Lamb, and Sidney Smith, and 
Douglas Jerrold, or others of the famous wits of England. 
Let me venture to repeat a few, (but it is so easy to miss 
the best in such a collection, even when one thinks he 
finds them,) as I happen to turn to them in the volume : 

" The editor of the ' Statesman ' says more villany is on 

foot. We suppose the editor has lost his horse." 

"James Ray and John Parr have started a locofoco paper 
in Maine, called the ' Democrat.' Parr, in all that pertains to 
decency, is below zero; and Ray is below Parr." 

" ' Have I changed?' exclaims Gov. P . We do n't know. 

That depends on whether you ever were an honest man." 

" The [Washington] ' Globe' says that such patriotism as Mr. 
Clay's will not answer. True enough, for it can't be questioned." 

"The editor of the speaks of his ' lying curled up in 

bed these cold mornings.' This verifies what we said of him 
some time ago — ' he lies like a dog.'" 

"The Philadelphia 'Ledger' says that Clay, Calhoun, and 
Webster are behind the age. Then the age must be * tail fore- 
most.'" 

"A young widow has established a pistol gallery in New 
Orleans. Her qualifications as a teacher of the art of dueling 
are of course undoubted ; she has killed her man." 

"Mr. William Hood was robbed near Corinth, Alabama, on 
the 13th inst. The Corinth paper says that the name of the 
highwayman is unknown, but there is no doubt that he was 
Robbie.' Hood." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxi 

" A new Democratic paper in North Carolina is called * The 
Rising Day.' It ought rather to be called the Night, for it is the 
shadow of the < Globe.' " 

"Mr. John Love, of Alabama, was recently lost during a 
passage from Texas to Mexico. We had supposed that no Love 
would ever be lost between those countries." 

" The 'Globs ' says that ' Mr. Clay is a sharp politician.' No 
doubt of it, but the editor of the ' Globe ' is a sharper." 

" Messrs. Bell and Topp, of the ' N. C. Gazette,' say that 
* 'Prentices are made to serve masters.' Well, Bells were made to 
be hung, and Topps to be whipped." 

Of a more general character, a few witticisms and epi- 
grams may be given : 

" Wild rye and wild wheat grow in some regions sponta- 
neously. We believe that wild oats are always sown." 

"Men are deserters in adversity; when the sun sets, and all 
is dark, our very shadows refuse to follow us." 

" A well-known writer says that a fine coat covers a multitude 
of sins. It is still truer that such coats cover a multitude of 
sinners." 

"When a man's heart ossifies, or turns to bone, he dies at 
once; but if it petrifies, or turns to stone, he invariably lives 
too long for any useful purpose." 

"'What would j'ou do, madam, if you were a gentleman?' 
' Sir, what would you do if you were one ? ' " 

" Whatever Midas touched was turned into gold ; in these days, 
touch a man with gold and he'll turn into anything." 

"The botanists tell us that there is no such thing as a black 
flower. We suppose they never heard of the ' Coal-black Rose.'" 
[This was the heroine of an old-time negro song.] 

" The man who lives only for this world is a fool here, and 
there is danger that he will be (we speak it not profanely) a 
d — d fool hereafter." 



xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

The Louisville Journal was never exclusively a politi- 
cal paper, although it was that chiefly. It gained, and 
for many years retained, a large literary reputation, es- 
pecially as an avenue to the public for young poetical 
writers. If, as I have suggested, the New England Re- 
view was essentially the beginning of the Louisville 
Journal, then the name of Mr. Whittier, followed per- 
haps by that of Brainard, may head the long list of the 
Journal's occasional contributors, which included, later, 
the names of James Freeman Clarke, John Howard 
Payne, William D. Gallagher, Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, 
Mrs. Amelia Welby, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Mrs. C. A. 
Warfield, Mrs. Rosa Vertner. Jeffrey, Fortunatus Cosby, 
William Ross Wallace, William W. Fosdick, William 
D. Howells, William Wallace Harney, Forceythe Will- 
son, Elizabeth Conwell Smith (afterward Mrs. Willson), 
and others more or less known. I do not pretend to 
think greatly of all these writers, but this partial list con- 
tains several names sure of long life and honor in Ameri- 
can literature. The late Forceythe Willson, for example, 
one of the most remarkable poets yet born in this country, 
first printed his peculiar verses in Mr. Prentice's paper. 
Many of his poems show somewhat of the eccentricity 
and strangeness found in the poetical writings of William 
Blake ; but three or four of them, in their strong and 
noble sanity, pathetic power, dramatic realism, lofty and 
weird imagination, or tender beauty and delicacy of 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxiii 

feeling, may safely be said to be far more valuable than 
all of Blake's best poetry, and hardly inferior to Edgar A. 
Poe's half-dozen leading productions. Several of Mrs. 
Welby's poems, which Mr. Prentice had originally pub- 
lished and commended, Poe himself highly praised, saying 
of her, in 1848: "Very few American poets are at all 
comparable with her in the true poetical qualities. As 
for our poetesses, . . few of them approach her." I do 
not think poets are produced by encouragement, but many 
a one already born has died and made no sign for lack 
of it, and — in America, where recognition of delicate 
and subtle genius in literature is slower than in other 
lands, although that of coarser and more vulgar strain is 
perhaps quicker and more instant than elsewhere — such 
a disposition as Mr. Prentice, in the midst of busy politi- 
cal engrossment, showed, and long continued to show, 
sole of American editors before or since, to encourage 
poetic manifestation, is memorable, and destined not to 
be soon forgotten in the historv of American literature. 
As a specimen of his occasional private encouragement, 
I will quote from a letter written by him to a young girl, 
who, as he thought, exhibited unmistakeable genius of 
high order, and for whom he always cherished, until his 
death, the sincerest and highest regard. A friend had 
shown him some of her girlish verses, which he had pub- 
lished, and he had already written to her more briefly 
concerning them. It will be observed that his confident 



xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

prophecy is well guarded by wise conditions, and his 
criticism and advice are no less wise than gentle : 

"Dec. 25, [1855.] 
" I am glad that my brief letter was gratifying to you. Having 
heard that you are a little cynical, I did not know how you would 
receive it. But, thinking that you perhaps needed, and knowing 
that you deserved, encouragement, I resolved to express to you 
my appreciation of your genius. And I now say emphatically 
to you again, as I believe I said to you then, that, if you are 
entirely true to yourself, and if your life be spared, 3-011 will, in 
the maturity of your powers, be the first poet of your sex in the 
United States. I say this, not as what I think, but as what I 
know. 

. . u It was far from my design to suggest to you not to 
write poetry in your hours of sadness. We must all have hours 
of mournful feeling, and probably it is the case with most poets 
that their somber and melancholy thoughts and reflections are 
more essentially poetical than their joyous ones. I would have 
you utter all the poetical thoughts that arise in your soul except 
the morbid and misanthropic ones A tender sorrow is as 
healthful as joy, and as beautiful- Strike all that is sad from 
the works of our greatest poets, and their fame would be more 
than half destroyed. 

'Who would be doomed to look upon 
A sky without a cloud ? ' 

..." I have no doubt that your mind, as you intimate, has 
felt the unhealthful influences of the pages of Byron. I have, 
like yourself, an almost boundless admiration for the genius of 
that extraordinary man, but I do believe that it would have been 
better for mankind if he had never lived. I think that he made 
his mighty gifts a curse to the world. It is unfortunate that 
greatness ever exists without goodness — that there should ever 
be a great soul that neither loves man nor worships God. The 
glitter of the genius of an unhallowed nature is like the flashes 
of the lightning on a rock-bound coast, revealing only wreck 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXV 

and desolation. Read Byron, if you will, but do not yield 
yourself up to the fascinations of the deadly serpent that coils 
among the beautiful and glorious flowers upon his page. 

"The nerves of my fingers are so diseased that I usually do all 
my writing by an amanuensis. This is the longest letter that I 
have written with my own hand for fifteen years. I hope you 
will write to me. Your friend, 

" Geo. D. Prentice." 

The allusion in the closing paragraph was to a paraly- 
sis in his writing fingers, (a disease known profession- 
ally, I believe, as chorea scriptorum^) which, during the 
last twenty-five years of his life, made dictation to an 
amanuensis necessary for the great mass of his editorial 
writing. By painful exertion, however, he often wrote 
paragraphs and brief notes with his own hand. At one 
time he learned to use the pen in his left hand, and at 
another he tried a writing-machine. The letter from 
which I have quoted, like many later ones in my posses- 
sion, appears in his own neat, delicate, and always care- 
fully punctuated and legible manuscript. 

During his lifetime the reputation which Mr. Prentice 
enjoyed for his own poetry was hardly less than that 
which his wit and humor gave him. I have already said 
that the lines entitled "At my Mother's Grave," which 
have been highly praised for their melodious tenderness 
and mournful beauty of feeling, were written, while their 
author was yet in his boyhood, before he entered college. 
Mr. Prentice certainly began his career as a poet, but, like 



xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

William Cullen Bryant, he made journalism the business 
of his life. I doubt if Mr. Bryant has ever given him- 
self up so entirely to his public profession as did Mr. 
Prentice. The latter, as an editor, was always a great 
worker — rising early (as I remember him in some of the 
closing years of his life) and going to his editorial table, 
while merchants' clerks were yet at breakfast ; then 
sitting, with brief intervals, throughout the day, and 
often until late at night, devoting himself to his end- 
less task-work. But all along, from youth to the ap- 
proach of old age, he retained his early freshness of feel- 
ing and appetite for poetry, and continued to write it. 
Although he produced his most distinctive and popular 
poems while young, many of his later pieces seem 
hardly inferior to his best early ones. 

I am disposed to think there is no other American 
poet, except Mr. Bryant, who has so finely handled blank 
verse as Mr. Prentice has done in several of his princi- 
pal poems. His blank verse, indeed, occasionally sug- 
gests a resemblance to that of Mr. Bryant, although 
much more of emotional element and warmth of color — 
the visible life of human passion — are noticeable in it. 
He lacked that careful eye for the little half-secrets of 
Nature shown by Mr. Bryant, but his real love of 
Nature was no less true. Born in the country, he never 
lost its early influence in the dust and heat of the city, 
as one may clearly read in the fragments (which I have 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxvii 

found only under distinct heads, but have placed together 
under one) entitled "My Old Home." In nearly all of 
Mr. Prentice's more serious poetry — especially in his 
blank-verse poems — the current of feeling is in sympathy 
with the great works of Nature ; we find frequent allu- 
sions to the stars, the ocean, mountains, clouds, winds, 
storms, and rainbows — to the beautiful and wonderful 
facts and phenomena of earth and sky. 

If " Thanatopsis " is Mr. Bryant's representative poem 
in blank verse, u The Closing Year " may be said to be 
that of Mr. Prentice — it has long been so at least in popu- 
lar regard. I do not know where there may be found 
a more stately and solemn meditation on the flight of 
Time, and the changes wrought thereby, than this poem 
presents ; and I doubt if in English poetry there exists 
a more striking or loftier personification of Time, and 
allusion to his conquests, than its concluding lines afford. 
One of Mr. Prentice's faults in this, as in many other 
of his pieces, is an overstrong tendency to rhetorical 
movement and effect. " The River in the Mammoth 
Cave" is freer from this fault, though it has in one of its 
lines another fault, too frequent in Mr. Prentice's pjoetry 
— unhappy use of metaphor. He is speaking of the vari- 
ous formations in the great cavern resembling flowers, 

" Carved by the magic fingers of the drops" 

But this poem seems to me one of his best, and I pre- 



xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

fer it to " The Closing Year : " it has a peculiar som- 
berness of quiet feeling — its current of sentiment is as 
mournfully toned as the weird river it celebrates. " The 
Mammoth Cave" is more cheerful in its teaching, but 
is hardly less striking. 

Among others of Mr. Prentice's poems in blank verse 
may be mentioned the piece entitled " My Mother," 
which is in parts very tender and touching, with great 
beauty of expression, and indicates the strong hold his 
mother's memory had upon his heart during his busy, 
striving, and stormy manhood. I think it hardly inferior 
to Cowper's lines referring to his mother's picture — the 
experience given in them, the remembrance of a mother's 
death in early boyhood, is similar. " The Grave of the 
Beautiful " is touched with lovely and delicate hues of 
feeling, as is also " The Invalid's Reply." The last- 
named has passages of exquisite beauty and tenderness. 
"Lookout Mountain," " Thoughts on the Far Past," and 
"On the Summit of the Sierra Madre" are among the 
latest poems in blank verse by Mr. Prentice. They 
were all written during the last ten years of his life. 
The first of the three pieces just mentioned realizes 
with much vigor the desperate fight described — the battle 
above the clouds ; and each of them has passages of fine 
quality, which it would be difficult to surpass with quo- 
tation from recent American or English blank verse. 

Among his many poems in rhyme, the verses "To an 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxix 

Absent Wife," — written, while Mr. Prentice was visit- 
ing a water-cure establishment on the Gulf of Mexico, 
many years ago, in ill health — have been deservedly 
popular ; the last stanza is particularly terse and beau- 
tiful : 

" I sink in dreams : — low, sweet, and clear, 

Thy own dear voice is in my ear; 

Around my neck thy tresses twine ; 

Thy own loved hand is clasped in mine; 

Thy own soft lip to mine is pressed ; 

Thy head is pillowed on my breast: — 

Oh ! I have all my heart holds dear, 

And I am happy — thou art here ! " 

Of other pieces tender in sentiment, but referring to 
more youthful experience — and written in his youth — 
there are several, of which the one entitled "Memories" 
is perhaps the most pleasing. 

Mr. Prentice wrote many poems merely sentimental, 
without any real root in the heart ; and not a few of 
these, some of which are included in this volume, are 
commonplace ; too many of them contain identical allu- 
sions and figures — indeed, he had an easy disposition to 
repeat himself, especially in the many pieces which he 
addressed to persons. But several of his sentimental 
poems are very delicately finished — " To a Bunch of 
Roses," and "Lines to a Lady," for example. The first 
named, particularly, is exquisite, and both show the poet's 
terseness and epigrammatic felicity of expression. Two 
or three pieces of still lighter quality may be mentioned 



xxx BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

as good specimens of vers de societe — " The Bouquet's 
Compliments," "Fanny/' and "To the Daughter of an 
Old Sweetheart." 

Mr. Prentice was always modest regarding his poetic 
gift, as he was indeed modest regarding all his gifts. I 
remember to have heard him say, soon after I first knew 
him, that he did not think himself entitled to the name 
of poet, for which he had an exalted respect. Yet from 
first to last, something of the poetic distinction was 
always observable even in his more serious prose, which 
has here and there poetic color and cadence — and indeed 
it show T s itself occasionally in his volume of paragraphs. 
He was often persuaded to publish his poems in book 
form, many years before his death, but always declined, 
preferring they should only appear in this shape after 
that event. 

It must not be supposed that Mr. Prentice's editorial 
writing was confined to his myriad brief paragraphs. 
These were but the quick skirmishers of his moving 
and active force. He wrote long and earnest, often elo- 
quent and powerful, leading articles, throughout his edi- 
torial career, on all themes of large general or political 
interest. Having great fertility of resources, he would 
sometimes produce, in a single day, matter enough for 
use in several successive numbers of the Journal. Be- 
sides doing this work addressed directly to the public, 
and besides writing his poems, he was always a frequent 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxi 

letter-writer. Knowing intimately most of the leading 
public men of his day — statesmen, politicians, editors,, 
military men, artists, and authors — they were his occa- 
sional correspondents. He wrote numerous letters to 
ladies — very many of whom, distinguished in literature 
or society, were his acquaintances and friends ; I dare 
say that his best and most characteristic letters were of 
the latter class. From a number which lie before me, I 
will copy three or four, in whole or part, to show the 
quality of his epistolary writing ; in doing so I shall inci- 
dentally illustrate the gentler social and domestic side of 
his character. These letters are full of familiar gossip, 
playful wit, and humorous pleasantry. His correspon- 
dent was the same young lady to whom a letter already 
quoted was addressed two or three years earlier. Be- 
tween her and the ladies of his household — which, be- 
sides Mrs. Prentice, included his brother's daughter and 
the sister cf his most valued and confidential editorial, 
associate — there was a friendly intimacy, and she had 
recently visited them : 

"Oct. 21, [1S5S.] 

" Mrs. Prentice and the j-oung ladies are delighted to hear from 

you, and all send you their love. Mr. B is now one of us, and 

I trust that he will not soon leave us. His genial feelings, his 
quiet wit, his gentle manners, and his keen appreciation of the 
beautiful and the good make him a very charming companion. 
But I believe I need not praise him to you. 



xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

"We have had some good laughs about jour Memphis ad- 
mirer, who, I believe, is really a very clever fellow. A couple of 

days after you left here, he addressed a formal note to II , 

informing her, in words ominous of a solemn intent, that he 
wished to call and see her at a particular hour. He made the call, 
and afterward came to me and asked my consent to let him in- 
vite her to the theater. He got my consent, but failed to get hers, 
and she has not seen him since. So she will not be at all in 
your way." 

The illness mentioned in the following letter was an 
erysipelas which attacked Mr. Prentice in his face, and 
confined him to a darkened room for several weeks. 
The mock-earnest allusion to young men and women 
playing at cross-purposes in love is charming, and very 
characteristic ; it recalls that little poem of Moschus, 
which Shelley has translated, beginning : 

" Pan loved his neighbor, Echo — but that child," etc. 

"■Nov. 13, [1858.] 

"I have been hoping all along to be able to come to N 

forM S to-day, but I am disappointed. Her brother goes 

for her, and I send by him this little missive of memory and 
affection. 

" I was out of my prison for a little while three or four days ago, 
but I am back in it now, without any stiong hope of a speedy re- 
lease. My patience, which was considerable, is utterly exhausted, 
and I almost wish to die. I requested my barber, when he 
visited me this morning, to cut my throat for me; but he de- 
clined doing it, and somehow I do n't altogether like to do it my- 
self. Not unfrequently, however, I find myself repeating, with 
vehement gesture, the soliloquy of the Danish gentleman who 
saw his father's ghost, ' To be or not to be — that is the question.' 

" I had engagements abroad for the present month, which would 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxiii 

have been worth nearly thousand dollars to me, but I have 

had to abandon them all. This poor, pitiful malady, which has 
not even the dignity of being dangerous, has compelled me to 
give them up, and may force me to give up those of December 
and January. I do not know of any one who guards his health 
more vigilantly than I do mine, and certainly I know of no one 
whose vigilance is more indifferently rewarded. 'Tis very hard, 
but, I suppose, perfectly right. This sounds very much like resig- 
nation — doesn't it? But I am not resigned, and I can ?iot be. 

" Mr. S will tell you that we are all well except myself. We 

all retain a sweet memory of your visit, and cherish the hope that 

you will ere long come to us again. Mr. B has been getting 

ready to paint portraits, and expects to be able to open his room 
on Monday. I regret deeply that I can not be out, for I should 
be able to bring him at once as much work as he can do. 
I have no doubt, however, that, even if I have to lie here, he 
will do well, for he is a fine artist, and has a great many ad- 
mirers and friends. You seem to have objected to his addressing 

a piece of poetry to ; ■' [a pseudonym]. Ah, you were a 

little jealous, I suppose. However, you need n't have been, for 

you perhaps saw, from a subsequent number of the , that, 

although he was in love with ' ,' there was no chance of a 

match in the case, inasmuch as ' ' is desperately in love 

with me. How young men and women do play at cross-pur- 
poses. Here's poor Mr. B. in love with ' ' and poor 

1 ' in love with me, and poor I in love with you, and 

poor j r ou in love with somebody else, or rather a dozen some- 
body elses. The Lord pity us ! 

" I had a letter from A yesterday, and have had three 

or four from her quite recently. She tells me that she has just 
written to j t ou, and uses many words of love and endearment in 
speaking of you. . • . She is a young girl with many of a 
young girl's weaknesses, but, in view of her genius, I almost feel 
toward her, whether absent from her or present with her, the 
awe that a glorious young prophetess would inspire. . . . 

" Won't you send me a few lines by M S ? Do, for 



xxxiv BIO GRAPHIC AT, SKETCH. 

your words will come like sweet tones of music into my sad 

room Devotedly your friend, 

11 Geo. D. Prentice." 

In this next letter the writer has recovered from his 
illness, and makes humorous allusion to its nature. The 
letter is full of gayety and brightness ; Mr. Prentice's 
wit and humor show themselves at genial play through- 
out. In each of these quoted letters, since I present them 
only as specimens of his writing, I have removed the 
real names, or veiled them under initials : 

"Nov. 20, [1858.] 
" I am out of my sick room at last, and looking handsomer 
than you ever saw me in your life. It seems I did not bear my 
malady with as much fortitude as you would have expected of 
me. Well, I acknowledge that fortitude and patience did give 
way. I could have borne the pain well enough, and, if the 
malady had been dangerous, I suppose I could have stood that 
tolerably well for a sinner, but then, you see, the foul fiend at- 
tacked my beauty, and, even if I had been as good a Christian as 
you are, I should no doubt have murmured and grumbled at 
that. 

" You complain that I do not answer your questions. Well, 
I will, so far as I can remember them, though I do n't think you 

always mean much by them. I think that Mr. , of. Memphis, 

was really inconsolable. He did not go off at the time he had 
intended, nor for ten days afterward, although he had no busi- 
ness here. Several times, when H was shopping, he walked 

back and forth on the opposite side of the street, to obtain the 
small comfort of a look at her, though he never ventured to call 
upon her after his repulse. Byron says that 

. ' There is nothing so consoles a man 
As rum and true religion,' 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxv 

and, as Mr. does not enjoy the consolations of religion, I 

rather think he betook himself slightly to rum. 

"I have not seen Gov. M since you left us. I have had 

two letters from him, and in each of them he talks about R -, 

but says not a word about you. Hang him ! he has no taste, 
and I will never support him again for Governor or anything 

else — unless, indeed, R bids me do it; for you know I could 

refuse nothing to her. Judge , until your visit here, was a 

most indefatigable beau, but I have not heard of his visit to a 
lady since. He looks very melancholy, and sighs like a bellows 
— pining himself to death, I fear, for that pretty curl of yours. 
He thought the curl troublesome to you, but it has no doubt been 
a thousand times more troublesome to him — poor fellow ! I learn 
that three or four prisoners have been sent to the penitentiary 
simply from his absence of mind or inattention to his duties upon 

the bench ; and I think you ought to ask Gov. M for their 

pardon, or rather to persuade R to do so. What say .you? 

" We often talk of you in our family as familiarly and affec- 
tionately as if you belonged to it — and I wish to Heaven you did. 

You ask why Mr. , while ail the rest send love to you, nevei 

sends even his compliments. I think the reason must be — first 
that he is very far from being a ' demonstrative ' young gentle- 
man, and secondly, that he probably never knows when I am 
going to write to you. He certainly admires your genius very 
much. He was the first person that ever mentioned you to me. 

On his return from N , about three years ago, he exclaimed 

to me, with as near an approach to enthusiasm as he ever makes, 
1 1 have discovered a new poet.' 

" M S will probably write you to-day, and I believe 

she has redeemed her promise in regard to Z . Mr. B 

thinks your poem to him [a pleasantry of make-believe senti- 
ment, written in company with the young ladies of Mr. Pren- 
tice's household, which accidentally got into print,] the sweetest 
thing in the world, and I suppose he will attempt a retort, of 
course. You have probably observed that, in his poetry, he 
has recently been going- into the love-making line pretty exten- 



xxx vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

sively. I never write love poetry to the ladies now. If I let 
them write it to me, I think 'tis quite as much as they can rea- 
sonably expect." 

Of more serious expressions than are found in the 
foregoing, not a few quotations might be made. Here 
is one in which Mr. Prentice refers to his religious 
faith — the letter from which it is taken, though addressed 
to the same person, was written a year or two before 
those last quoted : 

"I rejoice, my little friend, that you are a believer. For my 
own part, I have no doubt either of the truths of Christianity, or 
of the momentous and infinite importance of those truths. I hear 
a thousand things from the pulpit that make me smile, yet I 
would rather be a Christian of the very humblest order of intel- 
lect than the most gloriously-gifted infidel that ever blazed like 
a comet through the atmosphere of earth." 

And here is an earnest and eloquent passage concern- 
ing " the fame that men hunt after in their lives,' , with 
which I may fitly close my quotations, and return to the 
current of Mr. Prentice's life : 

"I think, mj' j^oung friend, that you mean to be a little satiri- 
cal when you allude to what I said about your ability to win a 
fame that might shine like a star above your tomb. The figure 
may not be a happj' one, but I am sure there is in j^our heart, as 
in all high hearts, a craving to be remembered among men. 
There is a mighty hunger of the soul, which only the dream 
of fame can appease. . . . You may call fame an ''ignis 
fatuusf but the greatest of the sons of men have worshiped, and 
will ever worship it, as devoutly as the Persian bowed to the 
eternal fires of the sky." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxvii 

During several years immediately preceding the 
Southern Rebellion, Mr. Prentice appeared at seasons 
as a public lecturer, delivering two or three discourses 
on national politics in many of the Northern and South- 
ern cities. One of his lectures had for its theme the 
American Statesmanship of the day. In this he pre- 
sented a gloomy outlook at the future of the country. 
A life-long admirer and friend of Henry Clay, he. la- 
mented the latter' s comparatively recent departure : — 
"Ulysses," he said, "has gone upon his wandering, and 
there is none left in all Ithaca to bend his bow." He 
predicted wide public misfortune, and his dark prophe- 
cies were criticised as morbidly melancholy ; but the 
result proved their groundwork of truth. The South- 
ern secession movement was already brooding, and 
soon the storm fell. Mr. Prentice opposed the South- 
ern movement earnestly, in private conversation and in 
print, from the first. He had no doubt, he often said, 
of the result of the civil war which he thought would 
certainly follow the election of Abraham Lincoln, and 
the consequent secession of the South ; but the Bell 
and Everett party — the temporary Conservative Union 
party, which he warmly supported — having foiled, he 
recognized no other course but to accept, and, if neces- 
sary, support the Republican Union administration of 
Lincoln. 

Strong efforts were made by the Southern leaders to 



xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 

secure the Journal's powerful influence in behalf of the 
Confederacy ; but, although one or two of his business 
associates were not indisposed to accept the overtures,- 
Mr. Prentice persistently turned his face away. After- 
ward, I remember, he told me that he might have be- 
come very wealthy if he had joined the fortunes of the 
Rebellion. The importance of keeping the Louisville 
Journal as an active support of the Union cause in Ken- 
tucky, was recognized at the national capital, and its 
large immediate loss of Southern patronage was in part 
compensated by the Federal government. Mr. Prentice 
visited Washington several times during the years 1S61 
and 1S62, and was always treated with distinction by 
the President and his cabinet. President Lincoln, who 
had been an early reader and admirer of the Louis- 
ville Journal, held its editor in high esteem, and, during 
the. early months of Mr. Lincoln's administration, Mr. 
Prentice had strong personal influence with him. At 
a dinner given to Mr. Prentice, in Washington, early 
in 1862, by a prominent Republican official, various 
members of the cabinet being present, he was toasted 
by the Secretary of War as having himself charge of the 
War Department in Kentucky. The Louisville Journal 
was largely instrumental in keeping Kentucky within 
the Union. 

Mr. Prentice's course, however, though it was his path 
of duty, was a painful one. Both of his sons were 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. . xxxix 

eagerly Southern in feeling, each having been educated 
in part at Southern military schools. The younger, 
Clarence, could not be restrained from joining the Con- 
federate army at the start. Mr. Prentice's elder son, 
Courtland, who had been persuaded to remain upon a 
farm which his father had given him, near Louisville, 
during the early months of the Rebellion, left it — much 
to his father's regret and disappointment — in September, 
1862, and entered a company belonging to Morgan's 
cavalry. Mrs. Prentice, I believe, sent her heart with 
her boys, sympathizing with the cause they had adopted. 
Less than a month after Courtland joined the Confed- 
erate army, his dead body was brought home for burial. 
He was killed in battle, at Augusta, Ky. Mr. Prentice 
loved his sons warmly, and the death of this one gave 
him great sorrow. He wrote to me a few weeks later, 
saying : u I am grateful to you for your sympathy. I 
need it, and I need God's pity. I feel very, very deso- 
late. The wind of death has swept over my life and left 
it a desert, but in my sadness I will try to do my duty." 
And, again, somewhat later, he said : " I am in bad 
spirits, my dear friend, for my own sake and our coun- 
try's. My son is dead, and sometimes I almost fear that 
my country, too, may perish. I see no palm-tree upon 
the desert which surrounds me." His younger son's 
early connection with the Rebellion did not seem to have 
grieved him so much. Although he was devotedly 



xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

attached to both his sons, the elder seemed to be his 
favorite. 

Meanwhile, during the few days of Courtland's mili- 
tary life in an invading army, (for this was during the 
Confederate occupation of Kentucky,) Mr. Prentice him- 
self — in a city where his dearest friends by hundreds 
were Confederates — was one of the easily-counted tens 
willing to shoulder his gun as a volunteer home- 
guard, to protect that city from the same invading 
army. Long afterward, he told me — as something which 
then struck him humorously — of a midnight alarm, 
during this brief period of his volunteer service, when 
it was supposed the enemy was advancing upon the 
city ; the bells were rung, a premeditated signal, and 
out of hundreds who came to the rendezvous, there 
were but about sixty besides himself to go into the 
ranks for instant duty. The alarm, however, proved 
a false one. 

At the return of peace Mr. Prentice was an old man, 
and the days of his popularity and power were gone. 
Mrs. Prentice died in April, 1868. After her death he 
lived for a time with his son Clarence — who had con- 
tinued in the Confederate service, gaining the rank of 
a Colonel, until the close of the Rebellion — at his old 
home in Louisville; but, Clarence having exchanged 
the city property, which had been given him by his 
parents, for a farm several miles out of town, Mr. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xli 

Prentice, during the remainder of his life, occupied a 
small room at the Journal (then recently become the 
Courier-Journal) office — working, eating, sleeping there, 
and, since he was in ill health and feeble much of the 
time, seldom going out. Though the control of the 
newspaper had passed into other hands, he still worked 
steadfastly on in ,the old way. He had suffered occa- 
sionally for many years from a heart disease, which 
afflicted him seriously during the last year of his life, 
and it would hardly have been strange if he had been 
found dead some morning at his writing-table. But, 
a day or two before Christmas, 1869, he started from 
Louisville, during a season of bitter winter weather, to 
visit the farm of his son, and, riding in an open car- 
riage, contracted a severe cold, which, developing into 
pneumonia, was the direct cause of his death. He died 
on the morning of January 22, 1870. A lady who was 
present during his last moments asked me subsequently : 
" What do you suppose Mr. Prentice meant in his last 
expressions? Just before his death he seemed to arouse 
himself and said — we heard him distinctly — ' I want 
an 0;' and then, again, 'I want an V We at first 
supposed he said, ' I want to go,' and these were re- 
ported to have been his last words ; but I have often 
thought of these expressions, and wondered what could 
have been their meaning." Knowing Mr. Prentice's 
long habit of dictation in writing, and his manner 



xlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

of correcting his manuscript, which he always seemed 
carefully to overlook while walking to and fro, or sitting 
at the table opposite his amanuensis, it occurred to me 
that he may have been at the time in a slight delirium, 
and supposed himself dictating an article. I think this 
explanation was perhaps a just one, and that the tireless 
old editor died in a dream of correcting his copy. Yet 
he had always kept in sight his early religious education, 
and I know that he anticipated his death, and, I believe, 
did not dread it. 

In person Mr. Prentice was slightly above the medium 
stature, with a figure, when in vigorous health, inclined 
to stoutness. His features were not regular, but his face 
was for the most part pleasing ; often, when animated, 
it seemed handsome. His head was finely shaped, hav- 
ing a particularly noble and impressive forehead. His 
hair was black, but somewhat thin — retaining its black- 
ness until quite late in his life. He had dark-brown 
eyes, rather small, full of light and sparkle w r hen he was 
in a happy mood, though they could express fierceness 
and severity. The engraved likeness of him in this vol- 
ume is from a daguerreotype taken about the year 1856 
or 1 85 7, when he was between fifty-four and fifty-five 
years old. It represents him at his best, as I remember 
him. His voice was low and agreeable in its general 
tone. Among strangers he was apt to be reserved, some- 
times embarrassed; but with chosen friends his conver- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ' xliii 

tion was fluent and free — often full of characteristic 
brightness and humor ; at other times — when touching 
the loftier themes of poetry and philosophy — seriously 
sweet and eloquent. 

The leading traits of Mr. Prentice's character have 
been illustrated, I believe, in the facts of his life and 
the quotations from his writings which I have given. 
A man of the true genus irritabile, he was quickly im- 
pulsive, but his impulses were full of generosity. One 
of his friends once said of him to me : " He has the larg- 
est heart that ever beat." Mr. G. W. Griffin, who pub- 
lished a sketch of Mr. Prentice's life some years ago, re- 
lates, on the authority of Fortunatus Cosby, the poet, an 
anecdote which gives happy emphasis to what I have 

said of his generosity of impulse. A man named 

who had started certain scandalous reports concerning 
Mr. Prentice, which the latter had not troubled himself 
to notice, had the boldness to call upon him at his office 
several years afterward, with outworn, unclean garments, 
and in a repulsive personal condition. Mr. Cosby being 

present, called Mr. Prentice aside, and, after a little 

conversation, left the room. Mr. Cosby, a familiar friend 
of Mr. Prentice, asked the name of his unsightly visitor. 
" He is Thomas Jefferson — — . He told me he was in 
distress, and that he wanted two dollars and a half, for the 
purpose of going to see his mother." "Yes," answered 
Mr. Cosby, " and I suppose you were silly enough to give 



xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

it to him ? " " No," replied Mr. Prentice ; " I recollected 
that I had a mother, and asked myself the question, what 
she would have thought of me had I appeared before her 
in such a condition. I gave him twenty-five dollars, and 
told him to go and see his mother in the dress of a gentle- 
man." Thousands of dollars were given away, first and 
last, by Mr. Prentice in a similar manner, to needy young 
men passing through Louisville. Mr. Prentice was a 
warm and steadfast friend, and a noble enemy. That 
he was not without faults I need not deny. One of his 
chief faults, as he once confessed to me pleasantly, was 
a life-long inabilty to say " No " with sufficient distinct- 
ness. But whatever his faults may have been, he was 
always cordial in acknowledging the virtues of others. 

Upon the death of Mr. Prentice, great immediate 
respect was shown to his memory in Louisville, and 
.throughout the country. The Legislatures of Kentucky 
and Tennessee, then in session, each passed resolutions 
calling his death a public grief. The Kentucky Legisla- 
ture invited Mr. Henry Watterson, the friend and asso- 
ciate of his latter years, to prepare and deliver an ad- 
dress before it on Mr. Prentice's career and character : — 
this Mr. Watterson did very ably, a few days later. 

Mr. Prentice was a Mason, and his body, removed 
from his son's house to Louisville, was permitted to lie 
in state during one day in the Masonic Temple, where 
thousands of his fellow-citizens — men, women, and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlv 

children — thronged to take their last look at his familiar 

face. He was buried with Masonic honors in Cave Hill 

Cemetery, by the side of his wife and near the graves of 

his children.. No monument at present marks his grave, 

unless a rose-bush which stands at his head be one. 

Once, when I visited it, several years ago, a violet, 

planted by some tender hand, was growing above the 

poet's breast, recalling his early lines on his mother's 

grave : 

" The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild, 
Waves o'er thy head ; when shall it wave 
Above thy child?" 

But there is in course of execution, at Louisville, a 
statue, considerably larger than life-size, in Carrara mar- 
ble, representing Mr. Prentice sitting in his editorial 
chair in an accustomed meditative attitude, which is 
destined to stand, supported by granite pillars, at an ele- 
vation of nearly forty feet, in front of the new Courier- 
Journal building, adjoining the Public Library of Ken- 
tucky, and look down upon the busy street which so long 
knew and honored Mr. Prentice in life. This will be a 
fitting local monument of him in his public capacity as 
an editor, statesman, and patriot ; but a book is not con- 
fined to a city, and I believe there is something in this 
volume of his poems, which, although it may not be a 
moving and active force in the busy world, will survive 
the marble effigy in the memory of men. 



POEMS 



GEORGE D. PRENTICE. 



THE CLOSING YEAR. 

V I ^IS midnight's holy hour — and silence now 

JL Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
The bell's deep notes are swelling. 'Tis the knell 
Of the departed Year. 

No funeral train 
Is sweeping past ; yet on the stream and wood, 
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, 
Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred, 
As by a mourner's sigh ; and on yon cloud, 
That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand — 
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 
And Winter with his aged locks — and breathe 
In mournful cadences, that come abroad 
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, 
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead Year, 
Gone from the earth forever. 

'Tis a time 
For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, 



50 THE CLOSING TEAR. 

Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, 

Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 

And solemn finger to the beautiful 

And holy visions that have passed away 

And left no shadow of their loveliness 

On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts 

The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love, 

And, bending mournfully above the pale 

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 

O'er what has passed to nothingness. 

The Year 
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, 
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, 
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded It passed o'er 
The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield 
Flashed in the light of midday — and the strength 
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, 
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came 



THE CLOSING TEAR. 51 

And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ; 
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
It heralded its millions to their home 
In the dim land of dreams. 

Remorseless Time ! — 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! — what power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity? On, still on 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home. 
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain-crag — but Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink, 
Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear 
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain ; new empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, 



52 THE CLOSING TEAR, 

Startling the nations ; and the very stars, 
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,. 
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, 
To darkle in the trackless void : yet Time, 
Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, 
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 




AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. 

THE trembling dew-drops fall 
Upon the shutting flowers ; like souls at rest,. 
The stars shine gloriousty : and all, 
Save me, are blest. 

Mother, I love thy grave ! 
The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild, 
Waves o'er thy head ; when shall it wave 
Above thy child? 

'Tis a sweet flower, yet must 
Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow ; 
Dear mother, 'tis thine emblem — dust 
Is on thy brow. 

And I could love to die :. 
To leave untasted life's dark, bitter streams — 
By thee, as erst in childhood, lie, 
And share thy dreams. 

And must I linger here, 
To stain the plumage of my sinless years, 
And mourn the hopes to childhood dear 
With bitter tears? 



54 AT MT MO THER'S GRA VE. 

Aye, must I linger here, 
A lonely branch upon a withered tree, 
Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere, 
Went down w T ith thee ? 

Oft from life's withered bower, 
In still communion with the Past, I turn, 
And muse on thee, the only flower 
In Memory's urn. 

And, when the evening pale 
Bows, like a mourner, on the dim. blue wave, 
I stray to hear the night-winds wail 
Around thy grave. 

Where is thy spirit flown ? 
I gaze above — thy look is imaged there ; 
I listen — and thy gentle tone 
Is on the air. 

Oh, come, while here I press 
My brow upon thy grave ; and, in those mild 
And thrilling tones of tenderness, 
Bless, bless thy child ! 

Yes, bless thy weeping child ; 
And o'er thine urn — Religion's holiest shrine— 
Oh, give his spirit, undefiled, 
To blend with thine. 



THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 

OH, dark, mysterious stream, I sit by thee 
In awe profound, as myriad wanderers 
Have sat before. I see thy waters move 
From out the ghostly glimmerings of my lamp 
Into the dark beyond, as noiselessly 
As if thou wert a somber river drawn 
Upon a spectral canvas, or the stream 
Of dim Oblivion flowing through the lone 
And shadowy vale of death. There is no wave 
To whisper on thy shore, or breathe a wail, 
Wounding ils tender bosom on thy sharp 
And jagged rocks. Innumerous mingled tones, 
The voices of the day and of the night, 
Are ever heard through all our outer world, 
For Nature there is never dumb ; but here 
I turn and turn my listening ear, and catch 
No mortal sound, save that of my own heart,. 
That 'mid the awful stillness throbs aloud, 
Like the far sea-surf's low and measured beat 
Upon its rocky shore. But when a cry, 
Or shout, or song is raised, how wildly back 



56 THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CA VE. 

Come the weird echoes from a thousand rocks, 

As if unnumbered airy sentinels, 

The genii of the spot, caught up the voice, 

Repeating it in wonder — a wild maze 

Of spirit-tones, a wilderness of sounds, 

Earth-born but all unearthly. 

Thou dost seem, 
O wizard stream, a river of the dead — 
A river of some blasted, perished world, 
Wandering forever in the mystic void. 
No breeze e'er strays across thy solemn tide ; 
No bird e'er breaks thy surface with his wing ; 
No star, or sky, or bow, is ever glassed 
Within thy depths ; no flower or blade e'er breathes 
Its fragrance from thy bleak banks on the air. 
True, here are flowers, or semblances of flowers, 
Carved by the magic fingers of the drops 
That fall upon thy rocky battlements — 
Fair roses, tulips, pinks, and violets — 
All white as cerements of the coffined dead ; 
But they are flowers of stone, and never drank 
The sunshine or the dew. O somber stream, 
Whence comest thou, and whither goest? Far 
Above, upon the surface of old Earth, 
A hundred rivers o'er thee pass and sweep, 
In music and in sunshine, to the sea ; — 
Thou art not born of them. Whence comest thou, 



THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 57 

And whither goest? None of earth can know. 

No mortal e'er has gazed upon thy source — 

No mortal seen where thy dark waters blend 

With the abyss of Ocean. None may guess 

The mysteries of thy course. Perchance thou hast 

A hundred mighty cataracts, thundering down 

Toward Earth's eternal center ; but their sound 

Is not for ear of man. All we can know 

Is that thy tide rolls out, a specter stream, 

From yon stupendous, frowning wall of rock, 

And, moving on a little way, sinks down 

Beneath another mass of rock as dark 

And frowning, even as life — our little life — 

Born of one fathomless eternity, 

Steals on a moment and then disappears 

In an eternity as fathomless. 



3 



TO AN ABSENT WIFE. 

*r I ^ IS Morn : — the sea-breeze seems to bring 

.X Joy, health, and freshness on its wing ; 
Bright flowers, to me all strange and new, 
Are glittering in the early dew, 
And perfumes rise from every grove, 
As incense to the clouds that move 
Like spirits o'er yon welkin clear : 
But I am sad — thou art not here ! 

'T is Noon : — a calm, unbroken sleep 
Is on the blue waves of the deep 
A soft haze, like a fairy dream, 
Is floating over wood and stream , 
And many a broad magnolia flower, 
Within its shadowy woodland bower, 
Is gleaming like a lovely star : 
But I am sad — thou art afar ! 

'T is Eve : — on earth the sunset skies 
Are painting their own Eden dyes ; 
The stars come down, and trembling glow 
Like blossoms on the waves below ; 



TO AN ABSENT WIFE. 59 

And, like an unseen spirit, the breeze 
Seems lingering 'midst these orange trees, 
Breathing its music round the spot : 
But I am sad — I see thee not ! 

'T is Midnight : — with a soothing spell, 
The far tones of the ocean swell, 
Soft as a mother's cadence mild, 
Low bending o'er her sleeping child ; 
And on each wandering breeze are heard 
The rich notes of the mocking-bird, 
In many a wild and wondrous lay : 
But I am sad — thou art away ! 

I sink in dreams : — low, sweet, and clear, 
Thy own dear voice is in my ear ; 
Around my neck thy tresses twine — 
Thy own loved hand is clasped in mine — 
Thy own soft lip to mine is pressed — 
Thy head is pillowed on my breast : — 
Oh ! I have all my heart holds dear, 
And I am happy — thou art here ! 



HARVEST HYMN. 

AT Carmel's mount the prophet laid 
_ His offering on the altar-stone, 
And fire descended from the skies, 
And round the holy altar shone ; 
And thus, when Spring went smiling past, 
Our offerings on the earth were cast, 
And God's own blessing has come down, 
Our sacrifice of faith to crown. 

No conqueror o'er our fields has gone, 

To blast with war our summer bowers, 
And stain with blood of woe and guilt, 

The soil that giveth life to flowers ; 
But morning dews and evening rains 
Have fallen on our beauteous plains, 
And earth, through all her realms abroad, 
Gives back the image of her God. 

Bright with the Autumn's richest tints, 
Each hill lifts up its head on high, 

And spreads its fruits and blossoms out, 
An offering meet beneath' the sky ; 



HARVEST HTMN. 61 

And hill, and plain, and vale, and grove, 
Join in the sacrifice of love, 
And wind, and stream, and lake, and sea, 
Lift high their hymns of ecstasy. 

It is the festival of earth — 

The flame of love o'er Nature burns, 
And to the holy heavens goes up 

Like incense from a thousand urns ; 
And oh, let man's impassioned voice, 
With Nature's self, in song rejoice, 
Until the blended notes of love 
Ring from the temple-arch above. 




AN INFANT'S GRAVE.* 

NOT in the church-yard's hallowed ground, 
Where marble columns rise around, 
By willow or by cypress shade, 
Are thy poor little relics laid. 
Thou sleepest here, all, all alone — 
No other grave is near thine own. 
'T is well, 'tis well ; but oh, such fate 
Seems very, very desolate. 

We know not whence thy little form 

Was borne through rain, and wind, and storm ; 

We know not to what far-off wild 

They sought to take thee, lonely child. 

We only know thy puny life 

Was all unequal to the strife, 

And that thy dust is sleeping here, 

Unwet but by the stranger's tear. 

*A few months ago, I stood in the forest of Arkansas, at the 
grave of an infant, buried from an emigrant's wagon. 



AN INFANT'S GRAVE. 63 

Alas, what bitter tear-drops stole 

From thy poor mother's stricken soul, 

When in this dark and gloomy dell 

The damp clods on thy bosom fell : 

How throbbed her brain, how throbbed her heart, 

When mournfully she turned to part , 

From the rude mound her dear one o'er, 

To gaze upon it never more ! 

But yet it matters not, poor child, 
That thou must sleep in this lone wild ; 
Each Spring-time, as it wanders past, 
Its buds and blooms will round thee cast; 
The thick-leaved boughs and moonbeams pale 
Will o'er thee spread a solemn vail, 
And softest dew 7 s and showers will lave 
The blossoms on the infant's grave. 

Farewell ! I've paused one little hour 
To plant, lone child, this humble flower 
Above thy dust, and now I grieve 
To leave thee as all others leave. 
Farewell ! farewell ! where'er I stray, 
This mournful scene will with me stay — 
A picture hung upon the walls 
Of memory's dim and somber halls. 



THE ISLE AND STAR. 

IN the tropical seas 
There's a beautiful isle, 
Where storms never darken 

The sunlight's soft smile. 
There the hymn of the breeze 

And the hymn of the stream 
Are mingled in one, 

Like sweet sounds in a dream. 
There the song-birds at morn 

From the thick shadows start, 
Like musical thoughts 

From the poet's full heart. 
There the song-birds at noon, 

Sit in silence unbroken, 
Like an exquisite dream 

In the bosom, unspoken. 
There the flowers hang like rainbows 

On wildwood and lea : — 
O, say wilt thou dwell 

In that sweet isle with me? 



THE ISLE AND STAR. 65 

In the depth of the sky 

There's a beautiful star, 
Where no yew casts a shadow 

The bright scene to mar. 
There the rainbows ne'er fade, 

And the dews are ne'er dry, 
And a circle of moons 

Ever shines in the sky. 
There the songs of the blest, 

And the songs of the spheres, 
Are unceasingly heard 

Through the infinite years. 
There the soft airs float down 

From the amaranth bowers, 
All faint with the perfume 

Of Eden's own flowers. 
There truth, love, and beauty 

Immortal will be : — 
O, say, wilt thou dwell 

In that sw T eet star with me ? 



THE BOUQUET'S COMPLIMENTS. 

TO thee, the pure, the bright, the good, 
We come, a gentle sisterhood, 
From many a sweet and lovely spot, 
From wood and dell and fairy grot, 
With dews from nature's diamond mine, 
To worship at thy beauty's shrine. 
And hail thee in this simple lay, 
Our own enchanting Queen of May. 

In our far homes by wood and dell 
We often heard thy lovers tell 
With gesture wild and frenzied start, 
How very beautiful thou art. 
They called thee sweeter, brighter far, 
Than sweetest flower or brightest star ; 
They said that language could not speak 
The beauty of thy lip and cheek ; 
They said the music of thy words 
Was richer than the voice of birds ; 
And we have come without a sigh 
To see thee, hear thee, and to die. 



THE BOUQUET'S COMPLIMENTS. 67 

And it is true, dear Queen of May, 

All that we heard thy lovers say : 

Our red rose, when with dews it drips, 

Is not so red as thy red lips ; 

Our violet's bluer than the sky, 

But not so blue as thy blue eye ; 

Our jasmine's breath, though deemed divine, 

Is not so sweet, fair one, as thine ; 

The loveliest stars we used to see 

Are dim and cold compared to thee ; 

And there 's no bird, in field or grove, 

Can match thy gentle tones of love. 

And now, dear Queen, accept, we pray, 

The homage we have come to pay ; 

Our life, w r e know, is very brief, 

But yet in joy, and not in grief, 

Our lids will close if we may glow 

Awhile upon thy bosom's snow, 

Or die, O loveliest of girls, 

In the warm sunshine of thy curls. 



THE DEAD MARINER. 

SLEEP on, sleep on ! above thy corse 
The winds their Sabbath keep ; 
The waves are round thee, and thy breast 

Heaves with the heaving deep. 
O'er thee, mild eve her beauty flings, 
And there the white gull lifts her wings ; 
And the blue halcyon loves to lave 
Her plumage in the deep, blue wave. 

Sleep on ! no willow o'er thee bends 

With melancholy air, 
No violet springs, nor dewy rose 

Its soul of love lays bare ; 
But there the sea-flower, bright and young, 
Is sweetly o'er thy slumbers flung ; 
And, like a weeping mourner fair, 
The pale flag hangs its tresses there. 

Sleep on, sleep on ! the glittering depths 

Of ocean's coral caves 
Are thy bright urn — thy requiem 

The music of its waves ; 



THE DEAD MARINER. 69 

The purple gems forever burn 
In fadeless beauty round thy urn ; 
And, pure and deep as infant love, 
The blue sea rolls its waves above. 

Sleep on, sleep on ! the fearful wrath 

Of mingling cloud and deep 
May leave its wild and stormy track 

Above thy place of sleep ; 
But, when the wave has sunk to rest, 
As now, 'twill murmur o'er thy breast, 
And the bright victims of the sea 
Perchance will make their home with thee. 

Sleep on ! thy corse is far away, 

But love bewails thee yet ; 
For thee the heart-wrung sigh is breathed, 

And lovely eyes are wet ; 
And she, thy young and beauteous bride, 
Her thoughts are hovering by thy side, 
As oft she turns to view, with tears, 
The Eden of departed years. 



THE STARS. 

THOSE burning stars ! what are they ? I have dreamed 
That they were blossoms from the tree of life, 
Or glory flung back from the outspread wings 
Of God's Archangels ; or that yon blue skies, 
With all their gorgeous blazonry of gems, 
Were a bright banner waving o'er the earth 
From the far wall of Heaven ! And I have sat 
And drank their gushing glory, till I felt 
Their flash electric trembling with the deep 
And strong vibration down the living wire 
Of chainless passion ; and my every pulse 
Was beating high, as if a spring were there 
To buoy me up, where I might ever roam 
'Mid the unfathomed vastness of the sky, 
And dwell with those bright stars, and see their light 
Poured down upon the sleeping earth like dew 
From the bright urns of Naiads ! 

Beautiful stars ! 
What are ye? There is in my heart of hearts 
A fount that heaves beneath you, like the deep 
Beneath the glories of the midnight moon ! 
And list ! — your Eden-tones are floating now 



THE STARS. 71 

Around me like an element : so slow, 

So mildly beautiful, I almost deem 

That ye are there, the living harps of God, 

O'er which the incense -winds of Eden stray, 

And wake such tones of mystic minstrelsy 

As well might wander down to this dim world 

To fashion dreams of Heaven ! Peal on, peal on, 

Nature's high anthem ! for my life has caught 

A portion of your purity and power, 

And seems but as a sweet and glorious tone 

Of wild star-music ! 

Blessed, blessed things ! 
Ye are in heaven, and I on earth. My soul, 
Even with a whirlwind's rush, can wander off 
To your immortal realms, but it must fall, 
Like your own ancient Pleiad, from its height, 
To dim its new-caught glories in the dust ! 
This earth is very beautiful. I love 
Its wilderness of flowers, its bright clouds, 
The majesty of mountains, and the dread 
Magnificence of ocean — for they come 
Like visions on my heart ; but when I look 
On your unfading loveliness, I feel 
Like a lost infant gazing on its home, 
And weep to die, and come where ye repose 
Upon your boundless heaven, like parted souls 
On an eternity of blessedness. 



OUR CHILDHOOD. 

'f I iIS sad, yet sweet, to listen to the south wind's 

-L gentle swell, 

And think we hear the music our childhood knew so 

well ; 
To gaze out on the even, and the boundless fields of 

air, 
And feel again our boyhood's wish to roam like angels 
there. 

I 

There are many dreams of gladness that cling around 
the Past, 

And from the tomb of feeling old thoughts come throng- 
ing fast ; 

The forms we loved so dearly in the happy days now 
gone, 

The beauti'ful and lovely, so fair to look upon : — 

Those bright and gentle maidens, who seemed so formed 

for bliss, 
Too glorious and too heavenly for such a world as 

this— 



OUR CHILDHOOD. 73 

Whose dark, soft eyes seemed swimming in a sea of 

liquid light, 
And whose locks of gold were streaming o'er brows so 
sunny bright ; 

Whose smiles were like the sunshine in the spring-time 
of the year — 

Like the changeful gleams of April, they followed every 
tear : 

They have passed — like hopes — away, and their love- 
liness has fled ; 

Oh ! many a heart is mourning that they are with the 
dead. 

Like the brightest buds of summer, they have fallen 
with the stem ; 

Yet, oh, it is a lovely death, to fade from earth like 
them ! 

And yet the thought is saddening to muse on such as 

they, 
And feel that all the beautiful are passing fast 

away ; 
That the fair ones whom we love grow to each loving 

breast 
Like the tendril of the clinging vine, then perish 

where they rest. 



74 OUR CHILDHOOD, 

And we can but think of these, in the soft and gentle 

Spring, 
When the trees are waving o'er us, and the flowers are 

blossoming ; 
And we know that Winter 's coming with his cold and 

stormy sky, 
And the glorious beauty round us is budding but to 

die! 




TO A YOUNG BEAUTY. 

THAT dark, bright eye — that dark, bright eye- 
Where thoughts are pictured pure and high, 
And love's young visions softly gleam 
Like rose-tints on the twilight stream : 
That dark, bright eye — oh, I have felt 

The witchery of its magic rare 
Come o'er me till I could have knelt 
To worship the bright Spirit there. 

That raven hair — that raven hair — 
That wooes the soft and amorous air, 
And o'er thy brow's pure whiteness flows 
Like clouds o'er morning's drifted snows : 
That raven hair — I love to mark 

Its clusters o'er thy temples rove, 
While sweetly from its ringlets dark 

Is breathing all the soul of love. 

That lovely cheek — that lovely cheek — 
Where joy and beauty seem to speak 
From every lineament, and twine 
Their flower-wreaths o'er its virgin shrine : 



76 TO A TOUNG BEAUTY. 

That lovely cheek — how sweet to muse 
On the dear tints that o'er it rise, 

And, gazing on those breathing hues, 
To dream of love and Paradise. 

That floating form — that floating form — 
With Heaven's own glowing spirit warm, 
So beautiful, the vision fair 
Seems a bright creature of the air : 
That floating form — oh, I have dreamed 

Such forms were in the bowers above — 
Too bright for earth the vision seemed, 

A thing of ecstasy and love. 







A NAME IN THE SAND. 

ALONE I walked the ocean strand ; 
A pearly shell was in my hand : 
I stooped and wrote upon the sand 

My name, the year and day : — 

As onward from the spot I passed, 

One lingering look behind I cast, — 

A wave came rolling high and fast, 

And washed my line away. 

And so, methought, 'twill quickly be 
With every mark on earth from me : 
A wave of dark oblivion's sea, 

Will sweep across the place 
Where I have trod the sandy shore 
Of time, and been to be no more — 
Of me, my day, the name I bore, 

To leave no track or trace. 

And yet, with Him who counts the sands, 
And holds the water in his hands, 



78 



A NAME IN THE SAND. 



I know a lasting record stands, 

Inscribed against my name, 
Of all this mortal part has wrought, 
Of all this thinking soul has thought, 
And from these fleeting moments caught, 

For glory or for shame. 




TWAS her fourl 
Bright as a dre 



A DIRGE. 

WAS her fourth birth-day, and the morning rose 
ream of Eden, but she lay 
Within her snow-white shroud in cold repose, 

A form of beautiful, unbreathing clay ; 
Sweet spring-flowers lay beside her in their bloom, 

And one unopened bud was in her hand, 
An emblem of her doom — no, not her doom, 
For she will blossom in the better land. 

She came, and passed to her bright home above 

Ere yet one cloud had darkened life's young springs, 
Ere hope had faded in her heart, or love 

Within her soul had shut its wounded wings ; 
She was all truth, and love, and loveliness, 

And it is well such pure, sweet ones should die, — 
Upon the earth there is a blossom less, 

But oh, there is an added star on high. 

Though we be doomed a while on earth to stay, 
'T is sin to mourn when sinless beings die ; 






80 A DIRGE. 

To grieve when earth's frail beauty fades away 
In the immortal beauty of the sky; 

To murmur when the young and lovely wake 
From this dark sleep and all its tearful dreams, 

And go, 'mid songs of cherub bands to take 
Their angel plumage by the Eden streams. 




SENT WITH A ROSE. 

OH, take my rose, — 't is a lovely flower, 
And 'twas plucked in the morning's earliest hour, 
When a dew-drop lay at its heart of pearl 
Like a dream in the breast of a sleeping girl. 

Oh, press my rose, at thy own sweet home, 
Between the leaves of thy favorite tome ; 
Then keep it ever, for it will be 
A token of love from my heart to thee. 

There 's a rose, dear lady, upon thy cheek, 
Oh, fairer and brighter than words can speak ; 
But treasure this precept within thy breast, 
By none, save me, must that rose be pressed. 



•j%? 



SABBATH EVENING. 

HOW calmly sinks the parting sun ! 
Yet twilight lingers still ; 
And beautiful as dreams of Heaven 

It slumbers on the hill ; 
Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, 
Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings, 
And, rendering back the hues above, 
Seems resting in a trance of. love. 

Round yonder rocks, the forest trees 

*In shadowy groups recline, 
Like saints at evening bowed in prayer 

Around their holy shrine ; 
And through their leaves the night-winds blow, 
So calm and still, their music low 
Seems the mysterious voice of prayer, 
Soft echoed on the evening air. 

And yonder western throng of clouds, 

Retiring from the sky, 
So calmly move, so softly glow, 

They seem to Fancy's eye 



SABBA TH E VENING. 83 

Bright creatures of a better sphere, 
Come down at noon to worship here, 
And from their sacrifice of love 
Returning to their home above. 

! 

The blue isles of the golden sea, 

The night-arch floating high, 
The flowers that gaze upon the heavens, 

The bright streams leaping by, 
Are living with religion ; — deep 
On earth and sea its glories sleep, 
And mingle with the starlight rays, 
Like the soft light of parted days. 

The spirit of the holy eve 

Comes through the silent air 
To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes 

A gush of music there ! 
And the far depths of ether beam 
So passing fair, we almost dream 
That we can rise, and wander through 
Their open paths of trackless blue. 

Each soul is filled with glorious dreams, 

Each pulse is beating wild ; 
And thought is soaring to the shrine 

Of glory undefiled ! 



84 



SABBATH EVENING. 



And holy aspirations start, 
Like blessed angels, from the heart, 
And bind — for earth's dark ties are riven- 
Our spirits to the gates of Heaven. 




TO A LADY. 

I THINK of thee when Morning springs 
From sleep with plumage bathed in dew, 
And, like a young bird, lifts her wings 
Of gladness on the welkin blue. 

And when, at noon, the breath of love 
O'er flower and stream is wandering free, 

And sent in music from the grove, 
I think of thee, I think of thee. 

I think of thee, when, soft and wide, 
The Evening spreads her robes of light, 

And, like a young and timid bride, 
Sits blushing in the arms of Night. 

And when the moon's sweet crescent springs 
In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea, 

And stars are forth, like blessed things, 
I think of thee, I think of thee. 



86 



TO A LADY. 



I think of thee : — that eye of flame, 
Those tresses, falling bright and free, 

That brow, where u Beauty writes her name"- 
I think of thee, I think of thee. 




ON REVISITING BROWN UNIVERSITY. 

IT is the noon of night. On this calm spot, 
Where jessed my boyhood's years, I sit me down 
To wander through the dim world of the Past. 

The Past ! the silent Past ! pale Memory kneels 

Beside her shadowy urn, and with a deep 

And voiceless sorrow weeps above the grave 

Of beautiful affections. Her lone harp 

Lies broken at her feet, and, as the wind 

Goes o'er its moldering chords, a dirge-like sound 

Rises upon the air, and all again 

Is an unbreathing silence. 

Oh, the Past ! 
Its spirit as a mournful presence lives 
In every ray that gilds those ancient spires, 
And like a low and melancholy wind 
Comes o'er yon distant wood, and faintly breathes 
Upon my fevered spirit. Here I roved 
Ere I had fancied aught of life beyond 
The poet's twilight imaging. Those years 
Com 2 o'er me like the breath of fading flowers, 
And tones I loved fall on mv heart as dew 



ON REVISITING BROWN UNIVERSITY. 

Upon the withered rose-leaf. They were years 

When the rich sunlight blossomed in the air, 

And fancy, like a blessed rainbow, spanned 

The waves of Time, and joyous thoughts went off 

Upon its beautiful unpillared arch 

To revel there in cloud, and sun, and sky. 

Within yon silent domes, how many hearts 

Are beating high with glorious dreams. 'T is well ; 

The rosy sunlight of the morn should not 

Be darkened by the portents of the storm 

That may not burst till eve. Those youthful ones," 

Whose thoughts are woven of the hues of heaven, 

May see their visions fading tint by tint, 

Till naught is left upon the darkened air 

Save the gray winter cloud ; the brilliant star 

That glitters now upon their happy lives 

May redden to a scorching flame and burn 

Their every hope to dust ; yet why should thoughts 

Of coming sorrows cloud their hearts' bright depths 

With an untimely shade? Dream on — dream on, 

Ye thoughtless ones — dream on while yet ye may ! 

When life is but a shadow, tear, and sigh, 

Ye will turn back to linger round these hours 

Like stricken pilgrims, and their music sweet 

Will be a dear though melancholy tone 

In Memory's ear, sounding forever more. 



CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1832. 

LIKE a swift wave, the dying year 
Down Time's dark flood has passed, 
And its last sigh is lingering now 

Upon the sinking blast ; 
Oh, while it sparkled in the sun, 
It mirrored glories one by one, 

Too beautiful to last ; 
And these, lone year, are fled, like thee, 
To the dim past's unfathom'd sea 

How many a change is ours ! — the young, 
Like Spring's fresh flowers, have died, 
And manhood, like the Summer's flash, 

Has faded in his pride ; 
And aged ones, like withered leaves, 
Through which the Autumn tempest grieves, 

Have fallen, side by side ; 
The wild wind wails o'er earth to-day 
The dirge of millions passed away. 

These stanzas were written (but not published) on the 31st of 
December, 1S32. In that year Sir Walter Scott and Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton died, and South Carolina Nullification 
threatened the dissolution of the American Union. 



90 CLOSE OF THE TEAR 1S32. 

Even he, the monarch of the heart, 

The gifted and the proud, 
The wizard of old Scotland's hills, 

In common dust is bowed — ■ 
He, who on Mind's high steep could stand, 
And marshal with his sceptered hand 

The whirlwind and the cloud, 
And write a name, too bright to die, 
In lightning-traces on the sky. 

In our own land has fallen one, 
Whose fame at Time will mock — 

Who set his name to Freedom's scroll, 
And dared the battle-shock ; 

The last of that proud band lies low 

That bared their bosoms to the foe, 
A living rampart rock, 

And stood, the prophets of the free, 

At Liberty's Thermopylae. 

Gone is our Spartan phalanx now — 

In vain were tear and prayer — 
But list ! their awful voices still 

Breathe, burn upon the air ! 
They ring upon their country's ear 
A tone of warning and of fear, 

And bid her sons beware, 
Nor madly quench the glorious star, 
That nations worship from afar. 






CLOSE OF THE TEAR 1832. 91 

Time rushes still : another year, 

Like that whose tale is told, 
Is hurrying wildly past — and what 

Will its dark months unfold ! 
Like bale-fires on a stormy sea, 
Visions of blood perchance will be 

Upon its chart unrolled ; 
And strife may whet the sword of doom 
E'en on the stone of Carroll's tomb. 

A signal in the midnight heavens ! 

Lo, where yon meteor-gleam 
Is flashing from the far : off South 

To old Potomac's stream ! 
Its lurid and portentous smile 
Is like that star o'er Patmos' isle, 

Seen in the Prophet's dream, 
That sank on hill, and vale, and flood, 
And turned earth's waters into blood. 

My country, oh my country, pause 

Ere guilt has stained thy hand, 
Pause 'mid thy perils, and invoke 

The God of Freedom's land ; 
Then if the war-cloud vail thy sun. 
The spirit of thy Washington 

Upon that cloud will stand, 
To scatter its red folds in air 
And bend the bow of glory there. 



ANNIVERSARY OF A FRIEND'S WEDDING. 

WE 'VE shared each other's smiles and tears 
Through years of wedded life ; 
And Love has blessed those fleeting years, 
My own, my cherished wife. 

And if, at times, the storm's dark shroud 

Has rested in the air, 
Love's beaming sun has kissed the cloud, 

And left the rainbow there. 

In all our hopes, in all our dreams, 

Love is forever nigh, — 
A blossom in our path it seems, 

A sunbeam in our sky. 

" One morning while suffering in this way [from paralysis of 
his writing fingers], he composed a beautiful song for his friend, 
Dr. T. S. Bell. Mr. Prentice's amanuensis was not in, and he 
stepped over to the Doctor's office, and asked him to write some- 
thing for him, saying: " It is for you and jour wife." Mr. Pren- 
tice then dictated the following beautiful lines, which were 
afterward set tQ music by a distinguished artist of Poland. " — 
G. TV. Griffin. 



ANNIVERSART OF A WEDDING. 



93 



For all our joys of brightest hue 
Grow brighter in Love's smile, 

And there's no grief our hearts e'er knew 
That Love could not beguile. 




MEMORIES. 

ONCE more, once more, my Mary dear, 
I sit by that lone stream, 
Where first within thy timid ear 

I breathed love's burning dream. 
The birds we loved still tell their tale 

Of music, on each spray, 
And still the wild-rose decks the vale — 
But thou art far away. 

In vain thy vanished form I seek, 

By wood and stream and dell, 
And tears of anguish bathe my cheek 

Where tears of rapture fell ; 
And yet beneath those wild- wood bowers 

Dear thoughts my soul employ, 
For in the memories of past hours 

There is a mournful joy. 

Upon the air thy gentle words 

Around me seem to thrill, 
Like sounds upon the wind harp's chords 

When all the winds are still, 



MEMORIES. 



1)5 



Or like the low and soul-like swell 

Of that wild spirit-tone, 
Which haunts the hollow of the bell 

When its sad chime is done. 

I seem to hear thee speak my name 

In sweet, low murmurs now ; 
I seem to feel thy breath of flame 

Upon my cheek and brow ; 
On my cold lips I feel thy kiss, 

Thy heart to mine is laid — 
Alas, that such a dream of bliss 

Like other dreams must fade ! 




MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ALL day, as day is reckoned on the earth, 
I've wandered in these dim and awful aisles, 
Shut from the blue and breezy dome of heaven, 
While thoughts, wild, drear, and shadowy, have swept 
Across my awe-struck soul, like specters o'er 
The wizard's magic glass, or thunder-clouds 
O'er the blue waters of the deep. And now 
I'll sit me down upon yon broken rock 
To muse upon the strange and solemn things 
Of this mysterious realm. 

All day my steps 
Have been amid the beautiful, the wild, 
The gloomy, the terrific. Crystal founts, 
Almost invisible in their serene 
And pure transparency ; high, pillared domes, 
With stars and flowers all fretted like the halls 
Of Oriental monarchs ; rivers dark 
And drear and voiceless as Oblivion's stream, 
That flows through Death's dim vale of silence ; gulfs 
All fathomless, down which the loosened rock 
Plunges until its far-off echoes come 



MA MMO TH CA VE. 97 

Fainter and fainter like the dying roll 

Of thunders in the distance ; Stygian pools 

Whose agitated waves give back a sound 

Hollow and dismal, like the sullen roar 

In the volcano's depths : — these, these have left 

Their spell upon me, and their memories 

Have passed into my spirit, and are now 

Blent with my being till they seem a part 

Of my own immortality. 

God's hand, 
At the creation, hollowed out this vast 
Domain of darkness, where no herb nor flower 
E'er sprang amid the sands, nor dews, nor rains, 
Nor blessed sunbeams fell with freshening power, 
Nor gentle breeze its Eden message told 
Amid the dreadful gloom. Six thousand years 
Swept o'er the earth ere human footprints marked 
This subterranean desert. Centuries 
Like shadows came and past, and not a sound 
Was in this realm, save when at intervals, 
In the long lapse of ages, some huge mass 
Of overhanging rock fell thundering: down, 
Its echoes sounding through these corridors 
A moment, and then dying in a hush 
Of silence, such as brooded o'er the earth 
When earth was chaos. The great mastodon, 
The dreaded monster of the elder world, 



98 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Passed o'er this mighty cavern, and his tread 
Bent the old forest oaks like fragile reeds 
And made earth tremble ; armies in their pride 
Perchance have met above it in the shock 
Of war, with shout and groan, and clarion blast, 
And the hoarse echoes of the thunder gun ; 
The storm, the whirlwind, and the hurricane 
Have roared above it, and the bursting cloud 
Sent down its red and crashing thunderbolt ; ' 
Earthquakes have trampled o'er it in their wrath, 
Rocking earth's surface as the storm-wind rocks 
The old Atlantic ; — yet no sound of these 
E'er came down to ihe everlasting depths 
Of these dark solitudes. 

How oft we gaze 
With awe or admiration on the new 
And unfamiliar, but pass coldly by 
The lovelier and the mightier ! Wonderful 
Is this lone world of darkness and of gloom, 
But far more wonderful yon outer world 
Lit by the glorious sun. These arches swell 
Sublime in lone and dim magnificence, 
But how sublimer God's blue canopy, 
Beleaguered w r ith his burning cherubim 
Keeping their watch eternal ! Beautiful 
Are all the thousand snow-white gems that lie 
In these mysterious chambers, gleaming out 



MA MMO TH CA VE. 09 

Amid the melancholy gloom, and wild 

These rocky hills and cliffs and gulfs, but far 

More beautiful and wild the things that greet 

The wanderer in our world of light : the stars 

Floating on high like islands of the blest ; 

The autumn sunsets glowing like the gate 

Of far-off Paradise ; the gorgeous clouds 

On which the glories of the earth and sky 

Meet and commingle ; earth's unnumbered flowers 

All turning up their gentle eyes to heaven ; 

The birds, with bright wings glancing in the sun, 

Filling the air with rainbow miniatures ; 

The green old forests surging in the gale ; 

The everlasting mountains, on whose peaks 

The setting sun burns like an altar-flame ; 

And ocean, like a pure heart rendering back 

Heaven's perfect image, or in his wild wrath 

Heaving and tossing like the stormy breast 

Of a chained giant in his agony. 



TO SUE. 

*r I l IS very sweet to sit and gaze, dear girl, 

JL On thy fair face, 
As glowing as a crimson-shaded pearl 

Or lighted vase. 
Young beauty brightens, like an Eden -dream, 

On thy pure cheek, 
And joy and love from every feature seem 
To breathe and speak. 

I love to kneel in worship to the Sprite 

In thy dark eyes, 
Dark as the fabled Stygian stream, and bright 

As Paradise. 
Not oft the radiance of such eyes is given 

To light our way ; 
And oh, to me there's not a star in heaven 

So bright as they. 



I Ve known thee but a few brief days, and yet 

Thou wilt remain 
An image of undying beauty set 

On heart and brain. 



TO SUE. 101 

Each thought, each dream of thee, fair girl, will seem 

Mid toil and strife, 
A pure white lily swaying on the stream 

Of this dark life. 

The months will pass, the flowers will soon be bright 

On plain and hill, 
And the young birds with voices of delight 

The woodlands fill ; 
Oh, in that fairy season thou shalt be j — 

Mid budding bowers — 
My heart's young May-queen, and I'll twine for thee 

The heart's wild flowers. 

May fortune's richest gifts be hourly strewn' 

Around thy feet ; 
May every sound that greets thee be a tone 

Of music sweet. 
May every blessing rest upon thy heart 

Like morning dew, 
And no sad tear e'er from thy eyelids start, 

My gentle Sue. 



ON A WARM DAY NEAR THE CLOSE OF 
WINTER. 

HOW soft this southern gale ! Its freshness falls 
Upon my forehead like the light, warm touch 
Of the dew-lips of Spring-time. It has been 
In the far clime of blossoms, and it bears 
A message of affection to our woods, 
And vales, and streams. Spring, with her rose-air breath, 
Is coming now upon her rainbow wing, 
To waken the green earth to life and joy, 
And the free air to music. She will weave 
Her violet throne upon a thin, white cloud, 
Soft floating in the middle-air, and call 
Upon her thousand votaries to hail 
Her coming with a song and smile. The waves 
Will shout from rock and mountain, the blue lakes 
Will tremble like the plumage of a dove 
In the new gush of sun-light, and the birds 
Will breathe their loves in music, and float off — 
A shower of blossoms in the atmosphere. 
The young, gay leaves will weave their twilight hues 
In grove and forest ; 'mid yon budding isles 



ON A WARM DA Y IN WINTER. 103 

The sea will sleep like a Circassian bride 
Decked with her richest jewelry ; the sky 
Will take a bluer tint, and seem to arch 
More high and pure and beautiful above, 
As if to let the spirit go abroad 
In ampler jonrneyings ; and a deep spell 
Of life and bliss will, like a blessing, rest 
Upon the waking heart, and bid it float 
Like a young flower upon the buoyant wave 
Of beautiful imaginings of Heaven. 




A WISH. 

IN Southern seas, there is an isle, 
Where earth and sky forever smile ; 
Where storms cast not their somber hue 
Upon the welkin's holy blue ; 
Where clouds of blessed incense rise 
From myriad flowers of myriad dyes, 
And strange, bright birds glance through the bowers, 
Like winged stars or winged flowers. 

Oh, dear one, would it were our lot 

To dwell upon that lovely spot ; 

To stray through woods w T ith blossoms starred, 

Bright as the dreams of seer or bard ; 

To hear each other's whispered words 

'Mid the wild notes of tropic birds, 

And deem our lives, in those bright bovvers, 

One glorious dream of love and flowers. 



TO THE DAUGHTER OF AN OLD 
SWEETHEART. 

I LOVE thee, Juliet, for thy mother's sake, * 
And were I young should love thee for thine own. 
Afresh in thee her early charms awake, 

And all her witcheries are round thee thrown ; 
Thine are her girlhood's features, and I know 
Her many virtues in thy bosom glow. 

Thou art as lovely, though not yet as famed, 
As that bright maid, the beautiful, the true, 

The gentle being for whom thou wast named, 
The Juliet that our glorious Shakspeare drew. 

Thine is her magic loveliness — but, oh, 

What fiery youth shall be thy Romeo ? 

Whoe'er he be, oh, may his lot and thine 
Be happier than the lot of those of old ; 

May ye, like them, bow low at passion's shrine, 
May love within your bosoms ne'er grow cold ; 

And may your paths be ne'er, like theirs, beset 

By strifes of Montague and Capulet. 



106 DAUGHTER OF AN OLD SWEETHEART 



Like his great prototype, thy Romeo, 

Half-frenzied by his passion's raging flame, 

And kindling with a poet's fervid glow, 

May fancy he might cut thy beauteous frame 

Into bright stars to deck the midnight sky — 

But, gentle Juliet, may he never try ! 

I paid the tribute of an humble lay 

To thy fair mother in her girlhood bright, 

And now this humbler offering I pay 

To thee, oh, sweet young spirit of delight. 

And may I not, tossed on life's stormy waters, 

Live to make rhymes, dear Juliet, to thy daughters ? 







THE GRAVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

y r I 1 IS twilight, and I stand beside her grave ! 

_x_ Her grave ! Alas, that so much loveliness 
Should sink into the damp, cold earth ! Alas, 
That beauty such as hers should pass away, 
And that its image should exist no more 
Save in the hearts of mourning ones ! 

Oh, she 
Was beautiful as some bright, w r inged dream 
That wanders down from Eden's blessed bowers, 
And folds its starry plumes within the soul 
Of musing bard or sculptor. Forms like hers 
Oft pass at eve before the half-closed-eye — 
They glide like shadows o'er our paths, or bend 
From the soft edges of a moonlight cloud, 
And beckon to the sky, but rarely come 
Like her to beautify our homes and hearths 
With their abiding smiles. 

I see her now, 
Her blue eye floating in its own clear light, 



108 THE GRAVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Her young cheek, bright as an illumined gem, 

Her red lips, parted in their mirth, her smile 

Beaming like sunshine from each lineament, 

Her light step bounding o'er the summer flowers 

In very joyousness, as if she were 

A spirit of the morning or a wild 

Glad creature of the air — and can it be 

That all that bright exuberance of life, 

And love, and happiness, is sleeping now 

In deep and dark decay? Oh, can it be 

That Spring, with her soft skies, will come again, 

And by her warm breath woo her violets 

And roses from the earth, and send her streams 

Leaping and singing to the sea, and fill 

The soft air with her thousand melodies 

Of bird and breeze, and grove and waterfall, 

And our loved lost one be not here to greet 

With us the glories of the vernal time, 

And blend her ringing cadences with all 

The harmonies of Nature in her joy? 



MY HEART IS WITH THEE. 

WHEN the breeze with a whisper 
Steals soft through the grove, 
A sweet earnest lisper 

Of music and love ; 
When its gentle caressings 

Away charm each sigh, 
And the still dews, like blessings, 

Descend from the sky ; 
When a deep spell is lying 

On hill, vale, and lea — 
My warm heart is flying, 

Sweet spirit, to thee. 

When stars like sky-blossoms 

Above seem to blow, 
And waves like young bosoms 

Are swelling below ; 
When the voice of the river 

Floats, mournfully past, 



no 



MY HEART IS WITH THEE. 



And the forest's low shiver 

Is borne on the blast ; 
When wild tones are swelling 

From earth, air, and sea — 
My warm heart is dwelling, 

Sweet spirit, with thee. 

When the night-clouds are riding, 

Like ghosts, on the gale, 
And the young moon is gliding, 

Sweet, lonely, and pale ; 
When the ocean is sobbing 

In ceaseless unrest, 
And its great heart is throbbing 

All wild in its breast ; 
When the strong wind is wrestling 

With billow and tree — 
My warm heart is nestling, 

Sweet spirit, with thee. 



When in slumber thy fancies 
In loveliness gleam, 

And a thousand romances 
Are bright in thy dream ; 

When visions of brightness 
Like young angels start 



MT HEART IS WITH THEE. 



Ill 



In beautiful lightness 
All wild from thy heart ; 

When thy calm sleep is giving 
Thy dream-wings to thee, 

Oh, say art thou living, 
Sweet spirit, with me? 




MY MOTHER. 

MY mother, 'tis a long and weary time 
Since last I looked upon thy sad, sweet face, 
And listened to the gentle spirit-tones 
Of thy drar voice of music. I was then 
A child, a bright-haired child. The fearful thought 
Which slowly fastened on my throbbing brain, 
Tli at thou wast passing from the earth away, 
Was my young life's first sorrow. Through the long 
And solemn watches of that awful night, 
Kind friends, who dearly loved us, gathered round 
Thy dying couch, and, in my agony, 
I shrieked to them to save thee ; but with tears, 
And in the tones of holy sympathy, 
They told me thou wouldst die. 

Ah, then I bowed 
My head to God, whose worship thy dear lips 
Had taught me, and to Him with bursting heart 
I prayed that He would spare thee. And, as there 
I knelt, a holy calm, as if from Heaven, 



MT MOTHER. 113 

Came stealing o'er my spirit, and a voice 

Floated into my soul. It said that thou 

Must leave me, that thy home was in the sky, 

But that thou still wouldst love and guard thy child, 

And hover round him on thy angel-wings 

In all his wanderings here. 

My mother, then 
I rose in more than childhood's strength, and watched 
The fading of thy life. Dear friends still hung 
Around thy pillow, but I saw them not. 
Wild lamentations and deep sobs were breathed 
From hearts of anguish, but I heard them not. 
A man of God poured forth his soul in prayer 
For thy soul's welfare, but I heard him not 
I saw but thy wan cheek, thy parted lips, 
Thy half-closed eyes, so meek and calm beneath 
Their blue-veined lids ; thy bright, disheveled locks, 
Thy pallid brow, damp with the dews of death, 
And the faint heaving of thy breast, that oft 
In happy hours had pillowed my young head 
To sweet and gentle slumber ; and I heard 
But the faint struggle of thy failing breath, 
Thy stifling sighs, and the high, holy words 
That seemed to fall like dew-drops on my soul 
From out the blessed skies. All suddenly 
Thy dark eyes opened, and a moment looked 
Upon thy child with one fixed, burning gaze, 



1 14 MT MO J" HER. 

In which the deep and hoarded love of } r ears 

Was all concentred ; a convulsive thrill 

Shot through the fibres of thy wasted frame ; 

And Death was there — aye, thou wast mine and Death's ; 

And then my tears again gushed wildly forth ; 

But light from Heaven broke through them with a soft 

Prismatic glory, as I gazed above, 

And saw thee mounting, like a new-made star, 

Far up thy glowing pathway in the heavens. 

Long years, my dear, lost mother, have gone by 

Since thy death-hour. My childhood and my youth 

Have passed since then, and my strong manhood's prime 

Has faded like a vision, for my years 

Far, far outnumber thine on earth. I've seen 

Much, much of joy and sorrow ; I have felt 

Life's storms and sunshine, but I ne'er have known 

Such raptures as my full heart shared with thee 

In childhood's fairy years. Now, Time no more 

Scatters fresh roses round my feet ; — his hand 

Lets fall upon my path but pale, torn flowers, 

Dead blossoms, that the gentle dews of eve, 

The morning sunlight and the noontide rains 

Can ne'er revive. E'en thy dear image now, 

The sunlight of my childhood, seems to fade 

From Memory's vision. 'T is as some pale tint 

Upon the twilight wave, a broken glimpse 



MY MOTHER. 115 

Of something beautiful and dearly loved 

In far-gone years ; a dim and tender dream, 

That, like a faint bow on a darkened sky, 

Lies on my clouded brain. But, oh ! thy voice — 

Its tones can never perish in my soul ; 

It visits me amid the strife of men 

In the dark city's solitude. It comes, 

Amid the silence of the midnight hour, 

Upon my listening spirit like a strain 

Of fairy music o'er the sea. And oft, 

When at the eventide, amid a hush 

Deep as the awful stillness of a dream, 

I stray all lonely through the leafless woods, 

And gaze upon the moon that seems to mourn 

Her lonely lot in heaven, or on the trees, 

That look like frowning Titans in the dim 

And doubtful light, that unforgotten voice 

Swells on my ear like the low mournful tone 

Imprisoned in the sea-shell, or the sound, 

The melancholy sound, of dying gales 

Panting upon the far-off tree-tops. 

Yes, 
My mother dear, though mountains, hills and streams 
Divide me from thy grave, where I so oft 
In childhood laid my bosom on the turf 
That covered thine ; though the drear winter storms 
Long, long have cast o'er thee their spotless shrouds, 



116 MT MOTHER, 

And Night her pall, and though thine image sweet, 

The one dear picture cherished through my life, 

Grows dim and dimmer in my brain, thy voice 

Is ever in my ear and in my heart, 

To teach me love and gentleness and truth, 

And warn me from the perils that surround 

The paths of pilgrims o'er this desert earth. 



*& 



MARY. 

AGAIN the bright and joyous Spring 
Is passing o'er the earth, 
And at her call the woodlands ring 

With melody and mirth. 
Her music gushes from the stream 

And lingers in the bough, 
And Nature seems a fairy dream — 
But, Mary, where art thou ? 

The flowers that faded from our sight 

In Autumn's chilling gale, 
Again like earthly stars are bright 

On hill and plain and vale. 
The violet thy dear fingers nursed 

Lifts up its timid brow, 
And rose and lily bloom as erst — 

But, Mary, where art thou ? 

The many glories of the Spring, 

Its music and its flowers, 
Back on my saddened spirit bring 

The thoughts of perished hours. 



118 MART. 

The joy that had its source in thee 
Seems stealing o'er me now : 

Alas ! 'tis all a mockery — 
Sweet Mary, where art thou ? 

Oh, bright ones still, though thou art fled, 

Around my pathway shine, 
With eyes as blue and lips as red, 

And cheeks as fair as thine ; 
And still to these, 'mid mirth and song 

Proud men in worship bow : 
Alas ! I can not join the throng — 

Dear Mary, where art thou ? 

Oft-times in solitude afar, 

Where sin and strife are not, 
I look on every lovely star 

To seek thy dwelling-spot ; 
Oh, many round the midnight throne 

Are burning brightly now, 
But I would gaze on thine alone — 

Dear Mary, where art thou ? 



TO A BUNCH OF ROSES. 

SWEET flowers, whilst ye impart 
The fragrance of the spring-time, rich and rare, 
Go, bear that errand to young Julia's heart, 
Which only roses bear. 

Go, tell her, lovely flowers, 9 
That in my soul her own dear image gleams, 
A light, a radiance in my waking hours, 

A glory in my dreams. 

Say, though my love is hers, 
To her alone I can that love reveal ; 
Among her many burning worshipers 

I would, but may not kneel. 

Tell her it were your bliss 
Upon her gentle bosom to repose, 
And she, perhaps, may give you one sweet kiss— 

Oh, that I were a rose ! 



A NIGHT IN JUNE. 

NIGHT steals upon the world ; the shades, 
With silent flight, are sweeping down, 
To steep, as day's last glory fades, 

In tints of blue the landscape brown ; 
The wave breaks not ; deep slumber holds 
The dewy leaves ; the night-wind folds 
Her melancholy wing ; and sleep 
Is forth upon the pulseless deep. 

The willows, mid the silent rocks, 
Are brooding o'er the waters mild, 

Like a fond mother's pendent locks 
Hung sweetly o'er her sleeping child ; 

The flowers that fringe the purple stream 

Are sinking to their evening dream ; 

And earth appears a lovely spot, 

Where Sorrow's voice awakens not. 

But see ! such pure, such beautiful, 
And burning scenes awake to birth 

In yon bright depths, they render dull 
The loveliest tints that mantle earth ! 



A NIGHT IN JUNE. 121 

The heavens are rolling blue and fair, 
And the soft night-gems clustering there 
Seem, as on high they breathe and burn, 
Bright blossoms o'er day's shadowy urn. 

At this still hour, when starry songs 

Are floating through night's glowing noon, 

How sweet to view those radiant throngs 
Glitter around the throne of June ! 

To see them in their watch of love 

Gaze from the holy heavens above, 

And in their robes of brightness roam 

Like angels o'er the eternal dome ! 

Their light is on the ocean isles, 

'Tis trembling on the mountain stream ; 
And the far hills, beneath their smiles, 
Seem creatures of a blessed dream ! 
Upon the deep their glory lies, 
As if untreasured from the skies, 
And comes soft-flashing from its waves, 
Like sea -gems from their sparry caves ! 

7J* vj* 7(5 7^ if* 3(r 

Why gaze I thus? — 'tis worse than vain ! 

'Twas here I gazed in }^ears gone by, 
Ere life's cold winds had breathed one stain 

On Fancy's rich and mellow sky. 



122 A NIGHT IN JUNE. 

I feel, I feel those early years 
Deep thrilling through the fount of tears, 
And hurrying brightly, wildly back 
O'er Memory's deep and burning track ! 

'Twas here I gazed ! The night-bird still 

Pours its sweet song ; the starlight beams 
Still tinge the flower and forest hill ; 

And music gushes from the streams ; 
But I am changed ! I feel no more 
The sinless joys that charmed before ; 
And the dear years, so far departed, 
Come but to " mock the broken-hearted ! " 




LINES TO A LADY. 

LADY, F ve gazed on thee, 
And thou art now a vision of the Past, 
A spirit-star, whose holy light is cast 
On memory's voiceless sea. 

That star — it lingers there 
As beautiful as 't were a dewy flower, 
Soft-wafted down from Eden's glorious bower, 

And floating in mid-air. 

It is, that blessed one, 
The day-star of my destiny — the first 
I e'er could worship as the Persian erst 

Worshiped his own loved sun. 

On all my years may lie 
The shadow of the tempest, their dark flow 
Be wild and drear, but that dear star will glow 

Still beautiful on high. 



BIRTH-DAY REFLECTIONS. 

IT will be over soon. Another year 
Is gone, and its low knell is tolling, now 
O'er the wide ocean of the Past. 

Alas! 
I am not as in boyhood. There were hours 
Of joyousness that came like angel-shapes 
Upon my heart, but they are altered now, 
And rise on Memory's view like statues pale 
By a dim fount of tears. And there were streams 
Upon whose breasts the sweet young blossoms leaned, 
To list the gush of music, but their depths 
Are turned to dust. There, too, were blessed lights 
That shone, sweet rainbows of the spirit, o'er 
The skies of new existence, but their gleams, 
Like the lost Pleiad of the olden time, 
Have faded from the zenith, and are lost 
'Mid earth's cold mockeries ! 

How all is changed ! 
The guardians of my young and sinless years 
No more are dwellers of the earth. Their tones 



BIRTH-DAT REFLECTIONS. 125 

Of love oft dwell upon the twilight breeze, 

Or wander sweetly down through mists and dews, 

At midnight's calm and melancholy hour, 

But voice alone is there ! Ages of thought 

Come o'er me then, and, with a spirit won 

Back to my earlier years, I kneel again 

At young life's broken shrine. 

The thirst of power 
Has been a fever to my spirit. Oft, 
Even in my boyhood, I was wont to gaze 
Upon the awful cataract rushing down 
With its eternal thunder peal, the lone 
Expanse of Ocean with its infinite 
Of dark blue waters roaring to the heavens, 
The night-storm fiercely rending the great oaks 
From their rock-pinnacles, the giant-clouds 
Waving their plumes like warriors in the sky, 
And darting their quick lightning through the air 
Like the red flash of swords — aye, I was wont 
To gaze on these and almost weep to think 
I could not match their strength. The same wild thirst 
For power is yet upon me ; it has been 
A madness in my day-dreams, and a curse 
Upon my being ; it has led me on 
To mingle in the strife of men ; and now 
A myriad foes have left upon my name 
The stain of their vile breaths. 



126 BIRTH-DAT REFLECTIONS. 

Well, be it so ! 
There is a silent purpose in my heart, 
And neither love, nor hate, nor fear shall quell 
That one fixed daring. Though my being's stream 
Gives forth no music now, 'tis passing back 
To its great fountain in the skies, and there 
'T will rest forever in the ocean-tide 
Of God's immensity. I will not mourn 
Life's shrouded memories. I can still drink in 
The unshadowed beauties of the universe, 
Gaze with a soul of pride upon the blue 
Magnificence above, and hear the hymns 
Of Heaven in all the starry beams, and fill 
Glen, vale, and wood and mountain with the bright 
And glorious visions poured from the deep home 
Of an immortal mind. Past year, farewell ! 




THE INVALID'S REPLY. 

YES, dear one, I am dying. Hope at times 
Has whispered to me, in her siren tones, 
But now, alas ! I feel the tide of life 
Fast ebbing from my heart. I know that soon 
The green and flowery curtain of the grave 
Will close as softly round my fading form 
As the calm shadows of the evening hour 
Close o'er the fading stream. 

Oh ! there are times 
When my heart's tears gush wildly at the thought 
That, in the fresh, young morning-tide of life, 
I must resign my breath. To me the earth 
Is very beautiful. I love its flowers, 
Its birds, its dews, its rainbows, its glad streams, 
Its vales, its mountains, its green, wooing woods, 
Its moonlight clouds, its sunsets, and its soft 
And dewy twilights ; and I needs must mourn 
To think that I so soon shall pass away, 
And see them nevermore. 

But thou, the loved 
And fondly cherished idol of my life. 



128 THE INVALID'S REPLY. 

Thou dear twin-spirit of my deathless soul, 

'Twill be the keenest anguish of my heart 

To part from thee. True, we have never loved 

With the wild passion that fills heart and brain 

With flame and madness, yet my love for thee 

Is my life's life. A deeper, holier love 

Has never sighed and wept beneath the stars, 

Or glowed within the breasts of saints in heaven. 

It does not seem a passion of my heart, 

It is a portion of my soul. I feel 

That I am but a softened shade of thee, 

And that my spirit, parted from thine own, 

Might fade and perish from the universe 

Like a star- shadow when the star itself 

Is hidden by the storm-cloud. Aye, I fear 

That Heaven itself, though filled with love and God, 

Will be to me all desolate, if thou, 

Dear spirit, art not there. I 've often prayed 

That I might die before thee, for I felt 

I could not dwell without thee on the earth, 

And now my heart is breaking at the thought 

Of dying while thou livest, for I feel, 

My life's dear idol, that I can not dwell 

Without thee in the sky. Yet well I know 

That love like ours, so holy, pure and high, 

So far above the passions of the earth, 

Can perish not with mortal life In Heaven 






THE INVALID'S REPLY. 129 

'Twill brighten to a lovely star, and glow 

In the far ages of eternity, 

More beautiful and radiant than when first 

'Twas kindled into glory. Oh ! I love, 

I dearly love thee — these w T ill be my last, 

My dying words upon the earth, and they 

Will be my first when we shall meet in Heaven ; 

And when ten thousand myriads of years 

Shall fade into the past eternity, 

My soul will breathe the same dear words to thine- — 

I love thee, oh ! I love thee ! 

Weak and low 

My pulse of life is fluttering at my heart, 

And soon 'twill cease forever. These faint words 

Are the last echoes of the spirit's chords, 

Stirred by the breath of Memory. Bear me, love, 

I pray thee, to yon open window now, 

That I may look once more on Nature's face 

And listen to her gentle music-tone — 

Her holy voice of love. How beautiful, 

How very beautiful, are earth and sea, 

And the o'erarching sky, to one whose eyes 

Are soon to close upon the scenes of Time ! 

Yon blue lake sleeps beneath the flower-crowned hill 

With his sweet picture on her breast ; the white 

And rosy clouds are floating through the air 

Like cars of happy spirits ; every leaf 



130 THE INVALID'S REPLY, 

And flower is colored by the crimson hues 

Of the rich sunset, as the heart is tinged 

By thoughts of Paradise ; and the far trees 

Seem as if leaning, like departed souls, 

Upon the holy heavens. And look ! oh look ! 

Yon lovely star, the glorious evening star, 

Is shining there, far, far above the mists 

And dews of earth, like the bright star of faith 

Above our mortal tears ! I ne'er before 

Beheld the earth so green, the sky so blue, 

The sunset and the star of eve so bright, 

And soft, and beautiful ; I never felt 

The dewy twilight breeze so calm and fresh 

Upon my cheek and brow ; I never heard 

The melodies of wind, and bird, and wave, 

Fall with such sweetness on the ear. I know 

That Heaven is full of glory, but a God 

Of love and mercy will forgive the tears, 

Wrung from the fountain of my frail young heart, 

By the sad thought of parting with the bright 

And lovely things of earth. 

And, dear one, now 
I feel that my poor heart must bid fa re w r ell 
To thine. Oh ! no, no, dearest ! not farewell, 
For oft I will be with thee on the earth, 
Although my home be Heaven. At eventide 
When thou art wandering by the silent stream, 



THE INVALID'S REPLT. 131 

To muse upon the sweet and mournful Past, 
I will walk with thee, hand in hand, and share 
Thy gentle thoughts and fancies ; in thy grief, 
When all seems dark and desolate around 
Thy bleak and lonely pathway, 1 will glide 
Like a bright shadow o'er thy soul, and charm 
Away thy sorrow ; in the quiet hush 
Of the deep night, when thy clear head is laid 
Upon thy pillow, and thy spirit craves 
Communion with my spirit, I will come 
To nerve thy heart with strength, and gently lay 
My lip upon thy forehead with a touch 
Like the soft kisses of the southern breeze 
Stealing o'er bowers of roses ; when the wild, 
Dark storms of life beat fiercely on thy head, 
Thou wilt behold my semblance on the cloud, 
A rainbow to thy spirit ; I will bend 
At times above the fount within thy soul, 
And thou wilt see my image in its depths, 
Gazing into thy dark eyes with a smile 
As I have gazed in life. And I will come 
To thee in dreams, my spirit-mate, and we, 
With clasping hands and interwining wings, 
Will nightly wander o'er the starry deep, 
And by the blessed streams of Paradise, 
Loving in Heaven as we have loved on earth. 



COME TO ME IN DREAMS. 

COME in beautiful dreams, love, 
Oh ! come to me oft, 
When the light wings of sleep 

On my bosom lie soft ; 
Oh ! come when the sea, 

In the moon's gentle light, 
Beats low on the ear 

Like the pulse of the night ; 
When the sky and the wave 

Wear their holiest blue, 
When the dew 's on the flower 

And the star on the dew. 

Come in beautiful dreams, love, 

Oh ! come and we '11 stray 
Where the whole year is crowned 

With the blossoms of May ; 
Where each sound is as sweet 

As the coo of a dove, 
And the gales are as soft 

As the breathing of love ; 



COME TO ME IN DREAMS. 133 

Where the beams kiss the waves, 

And the waves kiss the beach. 
And our warm lips shall catch 

The sweet lessons they teach. 

Come in beautiful dreams, love, 

Oh ! come and we '11 fly 
Like two winged spirits 

Of love through the sky ; 
With hand clasped in hand 

On our dream-wings we'll go 
Where the starlight and moonlight 

Are blending their glow ; 
And on bright clouds we '11 linger 

Of purple and gold, 
Till love's angels envy 

The bliss they behold. 




TO ROSA. 

NOT in the Grecian isles, 
Not where the bright flowers of Illyssus shine, 
E'er moved a breathing form whose beauty's wiles 
Could match with thine. 

Not where the golden glow 

Of Italy's clear sky is pure and clear, 
Not where the beauteous waves of Leman flow, 

Hast thou thy peer. 

Not where the sunlight falls 

On bright Circassia through the perfumed air, 
Nor in old Stamboul's oriental halls, 

Dwells one so fair. 

No fabled form of old, 

Not hers who rose from out the foaming sea, 
Though deemed more fair than aught of earthly mould, 

Transcended thee. 



TO ROSA. 135 

In thy dark eyes a spell 

Of beauty lingers, but their glance of fire, 
When thy proud spirit is aroused, might quell 

The lion's ire. 

Thou movest floatingly, 

As the light cloud that to the zephyr yields, 
But with a step proud as a queen's might be 

O'er conquered fields. 

And thou hast that strange gift, 

The gift of genius, high and proud and strong, 
At whose behest thoughts beautiful and swift 

Around thee throng. 

They come to thee from far, 

From air, and earth, and ocean's boundless deeps; 
They rush in glory from each shining star 

On heaven's blue steeps. 

They leap from earth's far bound — 

Forth from the red volcano's depths they start — 
From bow and cloud they float — and gather round 

Thy burning heart. 

Then at thy high command 

They stand all marshaled in thy peerless lay, 
As some great warrior marshals his proud band 

In bright array. 



136 TO ROSA. 

i 

Thy hand has power to trace 

Words as enduring as yon planet's flame, 
Words that forever, 'mid our changing race, 

Will keep thy name. 

Linked with bright song alone, 

That name o'er Time's wild heaving waves will sweep, 
As o'er the water sweeps the bugle tone 

At midnight deep. 

Thy magic strains will make 

A portion of earth's living music, heard 
Forever, like the cadences of lake 

And breeze and bird. 

The world of Nature glows 

In thy bright page more lovely to the eye, 
As when, o'er hills and plain, the sunset throws 

Its golden dye. 

And thou art very dear 

To many hearts, thou bright and gifted one, 
Aye, men adore thee, as the Persian seer 

Adored the sun. 



A MEMORY. 

I KNOW a fair young girl, 
With a spirit wild and free 
As the birds that flit o'er the dimpling wave, 

Then away to the wildwood flee ; 
And she seems like a wreath of mist, 

As she moves through the summer bowers, 
With a step too floatingly soft to break 
The sleep of the dreaming flowers. 

Her eye is bright and clear 

As the depths of a shaded spring, 

And beauty's name on her brow is set — 
On her cheek its signet-ring ; 

And her voice is like the sound 
' Of a wave through the twilight leaves, 

Or a Peri's tones from a moonlight cloud 
In the hush of the summer eves. 

Along her temples pale, 

The blue veins seem to flow, 
In their winding course, half seen, half hid, 

Like streams in a field of snow ; 



138 



A MEMORY. 

And her shining tresses there 

Their beautiful light unfold, 
Like a painted cloud where the sunset lifts 

Its shadowy wings of gold. 

To me each thought of her 

Is a gleam of light and love, 
A gentle dream sent down to earth 

From the holy depths above ; 
'Tis a blessed sunbeam cast 

On affliction's cloud of tears, 
A star o'er the waste of a weary heart, 

A bow on the sky of years. 







THE FLIGHT OF YEARS. 

GONE ! gone forever ! — like a rushing wave 
Another Year has burst upon the shore 
Of earthly being, and its last low tones, 
Wandering in broken accents on the air, 
Are dying to an echo. 

The gay Spring, 
With its young charms, has gone — gone with its leaves- 
Its atmosphere of roses — its white clouds 
Slumbering like seraphs in the air — its birds 
Telling their loves in music — and its streams 
Leaping and shouting from the up-piled rocks 
To make earth echo with the joy of waves. 
And Summer, with its dews and showers, has gone — 
Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud 
Like Spirits of the Storm — its peaceful lakes 
Smiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreams 
Were of the opening flowers and budding trees 
And overhanging sky — and its bright mists 
Resting upon the mountain-tops, as crowns 
Upon the heads of giants. Autumn, too, 
Has gone, with all its deeper glories — gone 



140 THE FLIGHT OF TEARS, 

With its green hills like altars of the world 
Lifting their rich fruit-offerings to their God — 
Its cool winds straying mid the forest aisles 
To wake their thousand wind-harps — its serene 
And holy sunsets hanging o'er the West 
Like banners from the battlements of heaven — 
And its still evenings, when the moonlit sea 
Was ever throbbing, like the living heart 
Of the great Universe. Aye — these are now 
But sounds and visions of the Past — their deep, 
Wild beauty has departed from the earth, 
And they are gathered to the embrace of Death, 
Their solemn herald to Eternity. 

Nor have they gone alone. High human hearts 
Of passion have gone with them. The fresh dust 
Is chill on many a breast, that burned erewhile 
With fires that seemed immortal. Joys, that leaped 
Like angels from the heart, and wandered free 
In life's young morn to look upon the flowers, 
The poetry of nature, and to list 
The woven sounds of breeze, and bird, and stream, 
Upon the night-air, have been stricken down 
In silence to the dust. Exultant Hope, 
That roved forever on the buoyant winds 
Like the bright, starry bird of Paradise, 
And chanted to the ever-listening heart 



THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 141 

In the wild music of a thousand tongues, 

Or soared into the open sky, until 

Night's burning gems seemed jeweled on her brow, 

Has shut her drooping wing, and made her home 

Within the voiceless sepulcher. And Love, 

That knelt at Passion's holiest shrine, and gazed 

On his heart's idol as on some sweet star, 

Whose purity and distance make it dear, 

And dreamed of ecstacies, until his soul 

Seemed but a lyre that wakened in the glance 

Of the beloved one — he too has gone 

To his eternal resting-place. And where 

Is stern Ambition — he who madly grasped 

At Glory's fleeting phantom — he who sought 

His fame upon the battlefield, and longed 

To make his throne a pyramid of bones 

Amid the sea of blood ? He too has gone ! 

His stormy voice is mute — his mighty arm 

Is nerveless on its clod — his very name 

Is but a meteor of the night of years 

Whose gleams flashed out a moment o'er the earth, 

And faded into nothingness. The dream 

Of high devotion, beauty's bright array, 

And life's deep idol memories — all have passed 

Like the cloud-shadows on the starlit stream, 

Or a soft strain of music, when the winds 



142 THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 



Are slumbering on the billow. 

Yet, why muse 
Upon the Past with sorrow? Though the Year 
Has gone to blend with the mysterious tide 
Of old Eternity, and borne along 
Upon its heaving breast a thousand wrecks 
Of glory and of beauty — yet, why mourn 
That such is destiny? Another Year 
Succeedeth to the past — in their bright round 
The seasons came and go — the same blue arch, 
That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet — 
The same pure stars that we have loved to watch, 
Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hour 
Like lilies on the tomb of Day — and still 
Man will remain, to dream as he hath dreamed, 
And mark the earth with passion. Love will spring 
From the lone tomb of old affections — Hope 
And Joy and great Ambition, will rise up 
As they have risen — and their deeds will be 
Brighter than those engraven on the scroll 
Of parted centuries. Even now the sea 
Of coming years, beneath whose mighty waves 
Life's great events are heaving into birth, 
Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds 
Of heaven were prisoned in its soundless depths 
And struggling to be free. 



THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 143 

Weep not, that Time 
Is passing on — it will ere long reveal 
A brighter era to the nations. Hark ! 
Along the vales and mountains of the earth 
There is a deep, portentous murmuring, 
Like the swift rush of subterranean streams, 
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air, 
When the fierce Tempest, with sonorous wing, 
Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds, 
And hurries onward with his night of clouds 
Against the eternal mountains. 'T is the voice 
Of infant Freedom— and her stirring call 
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones 
From every hill-top of her Western home ; 
And lo ! it breaks across old Ocean's flood, 
And " Freedom ! Freedom ! " is the answering shout 
Of nations starting from the spell of years. 
The day-spring ! — see, 'tis brightening in the heavens! 
The watchmen of the night have caught the sign — 
From tower to tower the signal-fires Hash free — 
And the deep watch-word, like the rush of seas 
That heralds the volcano's bursting flame, 
Is sounding o'er the earth. Bright years of hope 
And life are on the wing ! — yon glorious bow 
Of Freedom, bended by the hand of God, 
Is spanning Time's dark surges. Its high arch, 
A type of Love and Mercy on the cloud, 



144 



THE FLIGHT OF TEARS. 



Tells that the many storms of human life 
Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves, 
Gathering the forms of glory and of peace, 
Reflect the undimmed brightness of the heavens. 




TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS.* 

I LONGED to see thee, gifted one, 
For fame, in accents warm, 
Had told me of thy loveliness 
Of mind, and face, and form ; 
But oh, I did not think to meet 
Such charms as I have met ; 
My dreams of thee were very bright, 
But thou art brighter yet. 

When Plato lay, in infancy, 

In slumber's soft eclipse, 

'T is said the gentle honey-bees 

Came clustering 'round his lips ; 

And thus, as on thy lips we look, 

So eloquent and warm, 

A thousand sweet and winged thoughts 

Around thee seem to swarm. 

* The authoress of " Belle Smith Abroad." 



146 TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS. 

A spell is in thy dark, bright eyes, 

The wildest soul to tame, 

Dark as the tempest-cloud and bright 

As its quick glance of flame ; 

And gazing in their earnest depths, 

I see more angels there 

Than fancy, to a dreaming seer, 

E'er pictured in the air. 

Young Genius his own coronal 

Around thy forehead wreathes, 

And high thoughts are the atmosphere 

In which thy spirit breathes ; 

Thy soul can read the mysteries 

Of cloud, and sky, and star, 

And hear the tones of Eden-spheres 

Borne sweetly down from far. 

For thee, the soul of poetry 

The universe pervades — 

It glitters in the light, and dwells, 

All softened, in the shades ; 

The young waves murmur it, the dew 

Reflects it from the flower, 

The blue skies breathe it, and the air 

Thrills with its mystic power. 



TO A BEAUTIFUL AUTHORESS. I47 

Press on, bright one, press proudly on 

To win the laurel crown, 

And set thy living name among 

The names of old renown ; 

Press on, press on, and thy bright fame 

Will never, never die, 

But, like the ivy, brighter grow 

As centuries pass by. 




HENRY CLAY. 

[written after his death.] 

WITH voice and mien of stern control, 
He stood among the great and proud, 
And words of fire burst from his soul 

Like lightnings from the tempest-cloud ; 
His high and deathless themes were crowned 

With glory of his genius born, 
And gloom and ruin darkly frowned 

Where fell his bolts of wrath and scorn. 

But he is gone, the free, the bold, 

The champion of his country's right ; 
His burning eye is dim and cold, 

And mute his voice of conscious might. 
Oh, no ! not mute ; the stirring call 

Can startle tyrants on their thrones, 
And on the hearts of nations fall 

More awful than his living tones. 



HENRY CLAT. 149 

The impulse that his spirit gave 

To human thought's wild, stormy sea, 
Will heave and thrill through every wave 

Of that great deep eternally ; 
And the all-circling atmosphere, 

With which is blent his breath of flame, 
Will sound with cadence deep and clear, 

In storm and calm, his voice and name. 

His words, that like a bugle blast 

Erst rang along the Grecian shore, 
And o'er the hoary Andes passed, 

Will still ring on forevermore. 
Great Liberty will catch the sounds, 

And start to newer, brighter life, 
And summon from earth's utmost bounds 

Her children to the glorious strife. 

Unnumbered pilgrims o'er the wave, 

In the far ages yet to be, 
Will come to kneel beside his grave, 

And hail him prophet of the free. 
'Tis holier ground, that lowly bed, 

In which his mouldering form is laid, 
Than fields where Liberty has bled 

Beside her broken battle-blade. 



150 



HENRT CLAT. 

Who, now in danger's fearful hour, 

When all around is wild and dark, 
Shall guide, with voice and arm of power^ 

Our Freedom's consecrated ark ? 
With stricken hearts, O God ! to thee, 

Beneath whose feet the stars are dust, 
We bow, and ask that thou wilt be, 

Through every ill, our stay and trust. 




MY OLD HOME. 

AND I have come yet once again to stray 
Where erst I strayed in childhood. Oh, 'tis sweet 
To gaze upon the dear old landscape ! Here 
My thoughts first reveled in the wild delight 
Of new existence ! Here my infant eye 
First dwelt on Nature in her loveliness : 
The golden flash of waters, the bright flowers 
That seemed to spring in very wantonness 
From every hill and stream ; the earth's green leaves, 
The moonlight mountains, the bright crimson gush, 
That deepening streamed along the skies of morn, 
And the rich heavens of sunset ! Here I loved 
To gaze upon the holy arch of eve 
In breathless longing, till I almost dreamed 
That I was mingling with its glorious depths, 
A portion of their purity ; to muse 
Upon the stars through ir^any a lonely night, 
Till their deep tones of mystic minstrelsy 
Were borne into my heart ; to list at morn 
The gentle voice of song-birds in their joy 
Lifting on high their matins, till my soul, 



152 MY OLD HOME. 

Like theirs, gushed forth in music ; and to look 
Upon the clouds in beauty wandering up 
The deep blue zenith, till my heart, like them. 
Went far away through yon high paths to seek 
The home of thought and spirit in the heavens. 



Years have passed by upon their shadowy wings, 

Yet o'er this spot no change has come to tell 

The noiseless flight of Time. The far-off hills 

Are still as blue, the wave as musical, 

The wild rose blooms as fresh and fair, the winds 

Breathe yet as freshly on my brow, the trees 

Still cast as soft a shadow, and as sweet 

The violet springs to woo the breath of heaven, 

As in my years of infancy. I range 

Where erst I sported by the leaping stream, 

And the glad birds, as they remembered yet 

And loved the stranger, chant the same sweet songs 

I strayed to hear ere childhood's silken locks 

Had darkened on my temples. Can it be 

That the dark seal of Time and Change is set 

Upon my brow ? Each spot I loved still blooms 

In beauty undecayed ; I hear no sound 

That tells the tale of years ; and can it be 

That I alone am faded? Were it not 



MT OLD HOME. 153 

That many a fearful tale of sin and woe, 

And strife and desolation, has been graved 

On Memory's darkened scroll — oh, were it not 

That passion's burning pathway has been traced 

So deep, so fiercely vivid, that my heart 

Is withering yet beneath it, I could deem 

That I were still a pure and sinless child 

Just 'wakened from a long, long dream of tears, 

To gaze again in infant recklessness 

On earth, and heaven, and ocean, and again 

To paint the future as a lovely throng 

Of bright and glorious visions beckoning on 

To the blue beauty of life's Eden-isles. 



Ah ! 't is as in my childhood. Years have passed, 

Long years of weariness, since last I gazed 

Upon those hills and waters ; yet again, 

As here I muse, life's early memories 

Steal in their freshness o'er me, and my heart 

Leaps to the sweet, wild melody that thrilled 

Through all its depths ere life's bright bow had gone 

From childhood's purple morning, or the stream 

Of Time, that gushed exulting by, had lost 

The tints of Heaven's blue beauty. Memory hangs 

With fondness on each dear memento yet, 



154 MY OLD HOME. 

That tells of those far years ; and many a chord, 
Touched by her melancholy hand, awakes 
From its long, dreamless slumber, and its strains 
Of sweet and mournful music faintly fall 
Upon the ear of Fancy, like the tones 
That come upon the dying winds of eve 
From the far moonlight ocean, when the storm 
Sleeps on the night-cloud and the waters heave 
As heaves the stricken bosom. 

Every scene 
Is living with the voiceless spirit still 
Of life's departed Eden. Early joys, 
So sweet, so beautiful, they almost seem 
The wild creations of a wizard tale, 
With lightning-glow are flashing up life's stream, 
And breaking on my spirit with a power 
I thought had died to live no more. I gaze 
On scenes once blended with the happy hours 
Of youth and ecstasy, and feel that life, 
Though shadowed by the somber wing of years, 
Is not all turned to bitterness. The flame 
Has fallen, and its high and fitful gleams 
Perchance have faded, but the living fires 
Still glow beneath the ashes. The bright stream 
Is wasted, and its wave has ceased to flash 
In gladness to the sunlight, and to bear 
The flowers upon its sparkling bosom, yet 



MT OLD HOME. 155 



'Twill flow on in undying freshness still 
Deep in its buried channels evermore. 



Ah ! how the silent memories of years 

Are stirring in my spirit. I have been 

A lone and joyless wanderer. I have roamed 

Abroad through other climes, where tropic flowers 

Were offering up their incense, and the stars 

Swimming like living creatures ; I have strayed 

Where the soft skies of Italy were hung 

In beautiful transparency above, 

And glory floating like a lovely dream 

O'er the rich landscape ; yet dear Fancy still, 

'Mid all the richer glow of brighter realms, 

Oft turned to picture the remembered home, 

That blessed its earliest day-dreams. Must I go 

Forth in the world again ? 1 've proved its joys, 

Till joy was turned to bitterness — I've felt 

Its sorrows till I thought my heart would burst 

With the fierce rush of tears ! The sorrowing babe 

Clings to its mother's breast. The bleeding dove 

Flies to her native vale, and nestles there 

To die amid the quiet grove, where first 

She tried her tender pinion. I could love 

Thus to repose amid these peaceful scenes 



156 



MT OLD HOME. 



To memory dear. Oh, it were passing sweet 

To rest forever on this lovely spot, 

Where passed my days of innocence — to dream 

Of the pure stream of infant happiness 

Sunk in life's wild and burning sands — to dwell 

On visions faded, till my broken heart 

Should cease to throb — to purify my soul 

With high and holy musings — and to lift 

Its aspirations to the central home 

Of love, and peace, and holiness in Heaven. 




NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERY. 

ONE evening, dear Virginia, in thy life, 
When thou and I were straying side by side 
Beneath the holy moonlight, and our thoughts 
Seemed taking a deep hue of mournfulness 
From the sweet, solemn hour, I said — if thou, 
Whose young years scarcely numbered half my own, 
Should'st pass before me to the spirit-land, 
I would, on some mild eve beneath the moon, 
Shining in heaven as it was shining then, 
Go forth alone to lay me by thy grave, 
And render to thy cherished memory 
The last sad tribute of a stricken heart. 
Thine answer was a sigh, a tear, a sob, 
A gentle pressure of the hand, and thus 
My earnest vow was hallowed. A thin cloud, 
Like a pale winding-sheet, that moment passed 
Across the moon, and as its shadow fell, 
Like a mysterious omen of the tomb, 
Upon our kindred spirits, thou didst turn 
Thine. e3 T e to that wan specter of the skies, 
And, gazing on the solemn portent, weep 
As if thy head were waters. 



158 NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CE METER T. 

Weary years 
Since then have planted furrows on my brow, 
And sorrows in my heart, and the pale moon, 
That shone around us on that lovely eve, 
Is shining now upon thy swarded grave, 
And I have come, a pilgrim of the night, 
To bow at Memory's holy shrine, and keep 
My unforgotten vow. 

Dear, parted one, 
Friend of my better years, dark months have passed 
With all their awful shadows o'er the earth, 
Since the green turf was laid above thy rest, 
'Mid sighs and streaming tears and stifled groans, 
But, oh ! thy gentle memory is not dim 
In the deep hearts that loved thee. We have set 
This sweet young rose-tree o'er thy hallowed grave, 
And may the skies shed their serenest dews 
Around it, may the summer clouds distil 
Their gentlest rains upon it, may the fresh 
Warm zephyrs fan it with their softest breath, 
And daily may the bright and holy beams 
Of morning greet it with their sweetest smile, 
That it may wave its roses o'er thy dust, 
Dear emblems of the flowers that thou so oft 
In life didst fling. upon our happy hearts 
From thy own spirit's Eden. Yet we know 



NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMBTBRT. 159 

'T is but an humble offering to thee, 

Who dwellest where the fadeless roses bloom, 

In Heaven's eternal sunshine. 

To our eyes 
Thy beauty has not faded from the earth ; 
We see it in the flowers that lift their lids 
To greet the early spring-time, in the bow 
The magic pencil of the sunshine paints 
Upon the flying rain-clouds, in the stars 
That glitter from the blue abyss of night, 
And in the strange, mysterious loveliness 
Of every holy sunset. To our ears 
The music of thy loved tones is not lost ; 
We hear it in the low, sweet cadences 
Of wave and stream and fountain, in the notes 
Of birds that from the sky and forest hail 
The sunrise with their songs, and in the wild 
And soul-like breathings of the evening wind 
Of grove and forest. Yet no sight or sound 
In all the world of Nature is as sweet, 
Dear, lost Virginia, as when thou wast here 
To gaze and listen with us. The young flowers 
And the pure stars seem pale and cold and dim, 
As if they looked through blinding tears : — alas ! 
The tears are in our eyes. The melodies 
Of wave and stream and bird and forest-harp, 



160 NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERY. 

Borne on the soft wings of the evening gale, 
Seem blended with a deep wail for the dead : — 
Alas ! the wail is in our hearts. 

Lost one ! 
We miss thee in our sadness and our joy ! 
When at the solemn eventide we stray, 
'Mid the still gathering of the twilight shades, 
To muse upon the dear and hallowed Past, 
With its deep, mournful memories, a voice 
Comes from the still recesses of our hearts — 
" She is not here!" In the gay, festive hour, 
When music peals upon the perfumed air, 
And wit and mirth are ringing in our ears, 
And light forms floating round us in the dance, 
And jewels flashing through luxuriant curls, 
And deep tones breathing vows of tenderness 
And truth to listening beauty, even'then, 
Amid the wild enchantments of the hour, 
To many a heart the Past comes back again, 
And, as the fountain of its tears is stirred, 
A voice comes sounding from its holiest depths — 
" Alas I she is not here I" The spring-time now 
Is forth upon the fresh green earth, the vales 
Are one bright wilderness of blooms, the woods, 
With all their wealth of rainbow tints, repose, 
Like fairy clouds udoii the vernal sky, 



NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERY. 161 

And every gale is burdened with the gush 

Of music — free, wild music ; yet, lost one, 

Through all these wildering melodies, that voice 

As from the very heart of Nature comes — 

"Alas/ she is not here!" But list ! oh, list !— 

From the eternal depths of yonder sky, 

From where the flash of sun and star is dim, 

Is uncreated light, an angel strain, 

As sweet as that in which the morning stars 

Together sang o'er the creation's birth, 

Comes floating downward through the ravished air — 

" J°y - J°y- s ^ ie ' s h ere - f s ^ ie ' s here! " 

'T is midnight deep, 
And a pale cloud, like that whose shadow fell 
Upon our souls on that remembered eve, 
Is passing o'er the moon, but now the shade 
Falls on one heart alone. I am alone, 
My dear and long-lost friend. Oh ! wheresoe'er 
In the vast universe of God thou art, 
I pray thee stoop at this mysterious hour 
To the dark earth from thy all-radiant home, 
And hold communion with thy weeping friend 
As in the hours departed. 

Ah, I feel, 
Sweet spirit, thou hast heard and blessed my prayer ! 
I hear the rustling of thy angel-plumes 



162 NIGHT IN CAVE HILL CEMETERT. 

About me and around ; the very air 

Is glowing with a thousand seraph thoughts, 

Bright as the sparkles of a shooting star ; 

A hand, from which the electric fire of Heaven 

Seems flashing through my frame, is clasped in mine ; 

Thy blessed voice, with its remembered tones 

Softened to more than mortal melody, 

Is thrilling through my heart, as 't were the voice 

Of the lost Pleiad calling from its place 

In the eternal void ; and our two souls 

Blend once again as erst they used to blend 

The heavenly with the earthly ! 

Fare thee well ! 
Sweet spirit, fare thee well ! The blessed words 
That thou, this night, hast whispered to me here, 
Above the mound that hides thy mortal form, 
Will purify my soul and strengthen me 
To bear the ills and agonies of life, 
And point me to an immortality 
With thee in God's own holy Paradise. 



TO MISS SALLIE M. BRYAN. 

LONG thy mystic tones, dear Sallie. 
Have been sounding through my brain, 
Like the distant voice of ocean, 

In the pause of wind and rain ; 
And in midnight's solemn musings, 

And the haunted dreams of sleep, 
Oft to thine my spirit answers, 
As deep calleth unto deep. 

I have dreamed thy soul a sea-shell, 

From the upper deep sublime, 
Cast by some unpitying billow 

On this rocky shore of Time, 
Where its sweet and dirge-like breathings 

Seems a low and mournful sigh — 
A deep, ever restless pining 

For its far home in the sky. 

I have dreamed thy soul a wind-harp, 
Of a weird and wondrous power, 

Breathing out its strange, wild music, 
In the twilight's wizard-hour, 



164 TO MISS SAL LIE M. BRYAN. 

Gently swept by gales of Eden, 

(When the earth- wind's wings are furled), 

And in mournful cadence telling 
Of its own dear native world. 

There's a realm within thy spirit, 

Filled with grandeur and with gloom, 
Where each tone is like a heart-wail, 

And each earth-swell seems a tomb ; 
And the flowers — a somber tinting 

Overspreads their ghastly forms, 
As if nurtured by the droppings 

But of passing thunder-storms. 

While thy calm, angelic features 

In serenest beauty sleep, 
Thy high thoughts, in vivid flashes, 

On our startled vision leap : — 
'Tis as if the keen, red lightning 

Should burst wildly from the fold 
Of a soft, white cloud of morning 

Tinged with violet, blue and gold. 

There's a tall plant of the tropics, 
That, amid its bristling spears, 

Puts forth one all-beauteous blossom 
With each score of passing years ; 



TO MISS S ALL IE M. BR TAN. 165 

And our human race, dear minstrel, 

Is a plant of kindred power : — 
Once in each score years it blossoms, 

And thou art its glorious flower. 




FANNIE, 

DEAR FANNIE, in the twilight sweet, 
I've mused upon the long-gone hours, 
When, touched by your light, fairy feet, 

My path grew red and white with flowers. 
Together oft we loved to stray, 

And sometimes by my side you stood, 
But oftener chose to bound away 

In girlhood's wild and frolic mood. 
And I, at such times, used to sit 

And watch you flitting o'er the plain 
As light as troops of fairies flit 

Across the poet's dreaming brain. 
Your voice was music to my soul — 

It seemed the cadence of the dove ; 
And oft we talked, without control, 

On every earthly theme but love. 
Ah, that was never said or sung 

Where we in gentle converse tarried, 
For, Fannie, you were very young, 

And I — was elderly and married. 



FANNIE, 167 

We were not more unlike in years 

Than thoughts and feelings. I was staid, 
And you a child of smiles and tears, 

A wild and self-willed little maid. 
I crowned you May Queen once, and swore 

Allegiance till the May-day's close, 
But, ere the next half-hour was o'er, 

I beat you with a full-blown rose. 
Then I the blooming missile sent 

Right at your laughing cheek and missed you, 
And then, as graver punishment, 

I caught you in my arms and kissed you. 
Full at my head your crown you threw, 

In all its wealth and vernal splendor, 
Then, frightened, to your feet I flew 

And knelt, a penitent offender. 
We verged, at times on quarrel's brink, 

We matched keen wits at every meeting, 
But you ne'er had from me, I think, 

But that one kiss and that one beating. 

A sad, sad parting came at last : 

You roamed afar — I scarce knew why ; 

From out my path a sweet flower passed, 
A bright star wandered from my sky. 

I did not dream to see you more, 
Or listen to your cadence sweet, 



168 



FANNIE. 



But here, upon this Southern shore, 

Again for one brief hour we meet. 
The scent of flower, the note of bird, 

Are loading this delicious breeze, 
But your dear face and voice have stirred 

My spirit's depths far more than these. 
Ah, Fannie, you are young and bright, 

And lovers, by the dozen, throng 
Forever round you, day and night, 

With wit, and blandishment, and song ; 
But, well I know, my darling pet, 

You do not let such trifles trouble you, 
Your wild heart is unconquered yet — 

Is it not so, dear Fannie W. ? 




A FAREWELL. 

I MET thee in a stranger land 
Far from my own blue streams, 
And gloriously the vision shone 

Upon my spirit's dreams ; 
And then my lyre, that long had slept 
Unvisited, unheard, unswept, 
Awoke in Beauty's gleams, 
As erst the harp of Memnon woke 
When o'er its chords the morning broke. 

We met, and soon my spirit bowed, 

Unshadowed girl, to thee, 
As the bright bow upon the cloud 

Bends to the monarch-sea. 
Thy words, thy tones, the smiles that played 
Upon thy lovely features, bade 

Long-hidden thoughts go free ; 
And sweetly in my manhood's tears 
Were glassed the tints of earlier years. 



170 4- FAREWELL. 

And now we part — these simple words 

May be my last farewell, 
But often o'er my bosom's chords 

Thy spirit-tones will swell ; 
The happy hours since first we met 
Upon my heart and life have set 

A deep and deathless spell ; 
And thou wilt be, although afar, 
Of memory's heaven the dearest star. 

Farewell ! farewell ! yon moon is bright 

And calm and pure like thee ; 
But, lo ! a dark cloud dims its light — 

The type, alas, of me ; 
From the blue heavens the cloud will go, 
But the unfading moon will glow 

Still beautiful and free ; 
And thus thy life with fadeless ray 
Will shine when I am passed away. 




YOUNG ADELAIDE. 

WHEN Morn comes, beautiful and calm, 
With cheek of bloom and breath of balm, 
And stoops o'er rose and violet blue 
To kiss them with her lips of dew, 
And bids the waves and breezes wake 
Their fairy tones on stream and lake, 
I love to stray o'er hill and glade 
And think of thee, young Adelaide. 

And when the birds at evening fold 
Their glancing wings of blue and gold, 
And white mists in the starlight shine, 
Floating with motion soft as thine, 
And Night in her strange beauty vies 
With thy dark hair and starry eyes, 
I love to stray o'er vale and lea, 
And think, young Adelaide, of thee. 



A NIGHT SCENE. 

J T I ^ IS a sweet scene. 'Mid shadows dim 

JL The mighty river wanders by, 
And on its calm, unruffled brim, 

So soft the bright star-shadows lie, 
'T would seem as if the night-wind's plume 
Had swept through woods of tropic bloom, 
And shaken down their blossoms white 
To float upon the waves to-night. 

And see ! as soars the moon aloft, 

Her yellow beams come through the air 

So mild, so beautifully soft, 

That wave and wood seem stirred with prayer : 

And the pure spirit, as it kneels 

At Nature's holy altar, feels 

Religion's self come stealing by 

In every beam that cleaves the sky. 

The living soul of beauty fills 

The air with glorious visions : bright 

They wander o'er the forest hills 
And linger in the pallid light ; 



A NIGHT SCENE. 



173 



Off to the breathing heavens they go, 
Along the earth they live and glow, 
Shed on the stream their holy smiles, 
And beckon to its purple isles. 




RAPHAEL TO JULIA. 

THOU gav'st thy hand, all trembling like a dove, 
To one who deemed thee, as thou art, divine, 
But could he love thee with the glorious love 
That's due to such a fiery* heart as thine? 

Thou wast to him the idol of his years, 
A star to light his pathway from on high, 

But could his soul dissolve in love and tears, 
Or soar with thine into the broad, blue sky? 

When thy keen spirit on its wing of fire 
Rose proudly up above our mortal state, 

To list the music of the starry lyre, 

Did'st thou not sigh for some high spirit-mate? 

Oh, my heart's idol ! could thy bosom proud 
Give back the wild and burning love of mine, 

Our souls should mate like eagles in the cloud 7 
Where the storm welters and its rainbows shine ! 



RAPHAEL TO JULIA. 



175 



I could defy pain, death, my soul's unrest, 

In the fierce struggle for such glorious prize — 

What could I fear, while clasping to my breast 
All that I know or dream of Paradise ? 



THE PARTING. 

THE signal from the distant strand 
Streams o'er the waters blue — 
It bids me press thy parting hand, 

And breathe my last adieu ; 
But oft on fancy's glowing wing 

My heart will love to stray, 
And still to thee with rapture spring, 
Though I am far away. 

With thee I' ve wandered oft to hear, 

On Summer's quiet eves, 
The wild-bird's music, soft and clear, 

Borne through the whispering leaves, 
Or see the moon's bright shadow laid 

Upon the waveless bay : 
Those eves — their memory can not fade, 

Though I am far away. 

My life may feel Hope's withering blight, 

Yet Fancy's tearful eye 
Will turn to thee — the dearest light 

In retrospection's sky ; 



THE PARTING. 177 

And still the memory of our love, 

While life was young and gay, 
Will sweetly o'er my spirit move, 

Though I am far away. 

'T is hard, when Spring's first flower expands, 

To pass it coldly by, 
Or see upon the desert sands 

The gem unheeded lie ; 
The gentle thoughts that bless the hours 

Of love can ne'er decay, 
And thou wilt live in memory's bowers, 

Though I am far away. 

The sun has sunk, with fading gleam, 

Down evening's shadowy vale, 
But see — his softened glories stream 

From yonder crescent pale ; 
And thus affection's chastened light 

Will memory still display, 
To gild the gloom of sorrow's night, 

Though I am far away. 



LILY MERRILL. 

I'VE looked on many a lovely face 
In cold New England's stormy clime, 
I've knelt to woman's floating grace 

Beneath the orange and the lime ; 
I've heard, through all our mighty land, 

Her soft tones thrill upon the air, 
And sometimes dared to bathe my hand 

Amid the bright waves of her hair ; 
I 've lingered oft in hall and bower-, 

But still my heart and life seemed sterile, 
Until they burst to glorious flower 

Beneath the smile of Lily Merrill. 

In Italy I oft have strayed 

Where love and mirth and beauty shine ; 
I've looked on many a Georgian maid, 

Whose beauty almost seemed divine ; 
F ve dwelt beneath the skies of Spain, 

Within the old white walls of Cadiz, 



LILT MERRILL. 179 

And listened to love's melting strain 

Breathed o'er the lutes of Spanish ladies ; 

But ah, I never, never felt 

My wandering heart in mortal peril, 

Until in ecstasy I knelt 

To the young charms of Lily Merrill 

I met her in the joyous dance, 

Where music's soft and thrilling strain 
Swelled on the air, and every glance 

Fixed her sweet image on my brain ; 
I saw her move in pride of power, 

'Mid beauty's bright, bewitching daughters, 
As graceful as her namesake flower 

Upon the blue lake's heaving waters ; 
Amid her free and lovely tresses 

She wore no diamond, pearl, or beryl, 
But oft my heart with rapture blesses 

The night I met young Lily Merrill. 




TO MARIAN PRENTICE PIATT: 

AN INFANT. 

CHILD of two poets, whose rich songs 
Have won a high and peerless fame, 
I thank them, that to thee belongs 

A portion of my humble name — 
That they have blent for thee its tone 
With the sweet music of their own. 

As yet, dear child, thou hast not trod 
The paths of life where grief is met, 

But beauty, like a smile of God, 
Upon thy little brow is set ; 

And, oh ! may Heaven forever bless 

Thy life with love and happiness. 

A germ of genius, high and good, 
Methinks within thy bosom lies, 

Which, in thy coming womanhood, 

Will bear bright blossoms for the skies — 

Aye, bear even in these earthly bowers 

Eternity's all-glorious flowers. 



TO MARIAN PRENTICE PIATT. 181 

May all thy life a poem be, 

Oh, sweet as e'er thy mother writ, 
And beauteous as the visions fair « 

That through thy father's spirit flit ; 
And may that poem, bright and high, 
Be set to music of the sky. 




THE DEATH-DAY OF WILLIAM COURTLAND 
PRENTICE. 

ONCE more I come at set of sun 
To sit beside thee, long-lost one ; 
To muse upon thy joyous prime, 
In that dear, unforgotten time 
When thou didst bound o'er hills and plains, 
Life running wild in all thy veins, 
And thou in manhood's young estate 
Didst almost seem to challenge fate. 

Thine eagle-spirit ever soared 

Where thunders broke and tempests roared — 

Through battle's flame and smoke it dashed 

Where bayonets gleamed and sabres clashed ; 

But ah, a fatal shaft was sped, 

And thou wast with the stricken dead ; — 

Now thou art here beneath these clods, 

Struck by man's lightning, not by God's. 



WILLIAM COURTLAND PRENTICE. 183 

Dear Courtland, thou, the strong, the brave, 

Fillest a warrior's bloody grave ; 

The soil above thee, wet with showers, 

Gives birth to sweet and beauteous flowers ; 

But e'en the white rose to my view 

Bears in its veins a crimson hue, 

As if its mournful essence came 

From the red death-wounds of thy frame. 

Thou sleepest well ! The bugle-note 
Of battle may above thee float ; 
The tramp of charging hosts around 
May like an earthquake shake the ground ; 
The cannon's voice, the victors' shout, 
May through the sulphurous air peal out ; 
But thou wilt sleep amid the roar — 
No power but God's can wake thee more. 

Perchance, when fallen in the strife, 
Thy young lips breathed a prayer for life ; 
Perchance thy heart heaved one deep sigh 
To think that thou so soon must die. 
But, had it been thy lot to know 
The coming triumph of thy foe : 
Hadst thou foreseen, all rent and riven, 
The cause to which thy soul was given ; 
Foreseen the flag, thy guide, thy star, 



184 WILLIAM COURTLAND PRENTICE. 

Trailed low behind the conqueror's car ; 

Foreseen fierce desolation stride 

O'er the bright land that was thy pride ; 

Foreseen hill, plain, and vale, and wood, 

Swept as by storms of fire and blood : 

The clime where Heaven's best blessings fell 

Changed by man's passions to a hell : 

Its homes, where joy and love erst met, 

By hunger's howling wolves beset : 

Its human forms like skeletons, 

Its streams like ghostly Phlegethons — 

Thou would'st have blessed with latest breath 

A kind God for his angel, Death. 

Thy form is in this sacred spot, 
Thy memory and thy soul are not ; 
Thy name high hearts will love to keep 
Through all thy lone and solemn sleep. 
Oft bards have strung and bards will string 
Their sweet and holy lyres to fling 
Pure song-wreaths, evermore to bloom 
Like amaranths upon thy tomb ; 
And thoughts of thee in deep souls lie 
Like golden clouds in Autumn's sky* 
Bright ones will sigh — the young, the old — 
When thy young destiny is told ; 



WILLIAM COURTLAND PRENTICE, 



185 



Thy laurels, with soft heart-dews wet, 
Brighten as suns shall rise and set, 
And tear-founts heave and swell to thee, 
As to yon moon the heaving sea. 



->^n¥ 



ELEGIAC* 

HERE, whilst the twilight clews 
Are softly gathering on the leaves and flowers, 
I come, oh patriot dead, to muse 
A few brief hours. 

Hard by you, rank on rank, 
Rise the sad evergreens, whose solemn forms 
Are dark as if they only drank 
The thunder storms. 

Through the thick leaves around 
The low, wild winds their dirge- like music pour, 
Like the far ocean's solemn sound 
On its lone shore. 

From all the air a sigh, 
Dirge-like, and soul-like, melancholy, wild, 
Comes like a mother's wailing cry 
O'er her dead child. 

* Written in the portion of Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, 
allotted to the Union Dead. 



ELEGIAC. Ig7 

Yonder, a little way, 
Where mounds rise thick like surges on the sea, 
Those whom ye met in fierce array 
Sleep dreamlessly. 

The same soft breezes sing, 
The same birds chant their spirit-requiem, 

The same sad flowers their fragrance fling 
O'er you and them. 

And pilgrims oft will grieve 
Alike o'er Northern and o'er Southern dust. 
And both to God's great mercy leave 
In equal trust. 

Oh, ye and they, as foes, 
Will meet no more, but calmly take your rest, 
The meek hands folded in repose 
On each still breast. 

No marble columns rear 
Their shafts to blazon each dead hero's name, 
Yet well, oh well, ye slumber here, 
Great sons of fame ! 

The dead as free will start 
From the unburdened as the burdened sod, 
And stand as pure in soul and heart 
Before their God. 



188 ELEGIAC. 

%. %. %. >j< ^ ^ 

'T is morn — as lone I stand, 
The dawn is reddening o'er each humble grave ; 
Oh, when shall night pass from the land 
Ye die to save? 

Through all the upper air 
May your life-blood in exhalations rise, 
A ghastly cloud of red despair 
To traitor eyes. 

And may the lightnings dire, 
Coiled in that cloud, like vengeful scorpions dart 
To blast with their keen fangs of fire 
Each traitor heart. 



LINES 

TO ALICE M'CLURE GRIFFIN. 

I THINK of thee when Eastern skies 
Are gleaming with the dawn's first red- 
Of thee when sunset's fairy dyes 

In beauty o'er the West are shed ; 
My thoughts are thine mid toil and strife, 

Thine when all care and sorrow flee, 
Aye thine, forever thine ; — my life 
Is but a living thought of thee. 

I think of thee when Spring's first flowers 

O'er hill and plain and valley glow — 
Of thee, mid Autumn's purple bowers, 

And cold December's wastes of snow. 
My thoughts are thine when joys depart, 

Thine when from weary trouble free, 
Aye, thine, forever thine ; — my heart 

Is but a throbbing thought of thee. 



LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 

HISTORIC MOUNT ! baptized in flame and blood, 
Thy name is as immortal as the rocks 
That crown thy thunder-scarred but royal brow. 
Thou liftest up thy aged head in pride 
In the cool atmosphere, but higher still 
Within the calm and solemn atmosphere 
Of an immortal fame. From thy sublime 
And awful summit, I can gaze afar 
Upon innumerous lesser pinnacles, 
And oh ! my winged spirit loves to fly, 
Like a strong eagle, 'mid their up-piled crags. 
But most on thee, imperial mount, my soul 
Is chained as by a spell of power. 

I gaze 
From this tall height on Chickamauga's field, 
Where Death held erst high carnival. • The waves 
Of the mysterious death-river moaned ; 
The tramp, the shout, the fearful thunder-roar 
Of red-breath'd cannon, and the wailing cry 



LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 191 

Of myriad victims, filled the air. The smoke 
Of battle closed above the charging hosts, 
And, when it passed, the grand old flag no more 
Waved in the light of heaven. The soil was wet 
And miry with the life-blood of the brave, 
As with a drenching rain ; and yon broad stream, 
The noble and majestic Tennessee, 
Ran reddened toward the deep. 

But thou, O bleak 
And rocky mountain, wast the theater 
Of a yet fiercer struggle. On thy height, 
Where now I sit, a proud and gallant host, 
The chivalry and glory of the South, 
Stood up awaiting battle. Somber clouds, 
Floating far, far beneath them, shut from view 
The stern and silent foe, whose storied flag 
Bore on its folds our country's monarch-bird, 
Whose talons grasp the thunderbolt. Up, up 
Thy rugged sides they came with measured tramp, 
Unheralded by bugle, drum, or shout, 
And, though the clouds closed round them with the gloom 
Of double night, they paused not in their march 
Till sword and plume and bayonet emerged 
Above the spectral shades that circled round 
Thy awful breast. Then suddenly a storm 
Of flame and lead and iron downward burst, 
From this tall pinnacle, like winter hail. 



192 



LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 



Long, fierce, and bloody was the strife — alas ! 
The noble flag, our country's hope and pride, 
Sank down beneath the surface of the clouds, 
As sinks the pennon of a shipwrecked bark 
Beneath a stormy sea, and naught was heard 
Save the wild cries and moans of stricken men, 
And the swift rush of fleeing warriors down 
Thy rugged steeps. 

But soon the trumpet-voice 
Of the bold chieftain of the routed host 
Resounded through the atmosphere, and pierced 
The clouds that hung around thee. With high words 
He quickly summoned his brave soldiery back 
To the renewal of the deadly fight ; 
Again their stern and measured tramp was heard 
By the flushed Southrons, as it echoed up 
Thy bald, majestic cliffs. Again they burst, 
Like spirits of destruction, through the clouds, 
And mid a thousand hurtling missiles swept 
Their foes before them as the whirlwind sweeps 
The strong oaks of the forest. Victory 
Perched with her sister-eagle on the scorched 
And torn and blackened banner. 

Awful mount : 
The stains of blood have faded from thy rocks, 
The cries of mortal agony have ceased 
To echo from thy hollow cliffs, the smoke 



LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 193 

Of battle long since melted into air, 

And yet thou art unchanged. Aye, thou wilt lift 

In majesty thy walls above the storm, 

Mocking the generations as they pass, 

And pilgrims of the far-off centuries 

Will sometimes linger in their wanderings, 

To ponder, with a deep and sacred awe. 

The legend of the fight above the clouds. 



^% 




TO A POLITICAL OPPONENT.* 

I SEND thee, Greeley, words of cheer, 
Thou bravest, truest, best of men ; 
For I have in arked thy strong career, 

As traced by thy own sturdy pen. 
I 've seen thy struggles with the foes 

That dared thee to the desperate fight, 
And loved to watch thy goodly blows, 

Dealt for the cause thou deem'st the right. 

Thou 'st dared to stand against the wrong 

When many faltered by thy side ; 
In thy own strength hast dared be strong, 

Nor on another's arm relied. 
Thy own bold thoughts thou'st dared to think, 

Thy own great purposes avowed ; 
And none have ever seen thee shrink 

From the fierce surges of the crowd. 

* Horace Greeley. 



TO A POLITICAL OPPONENT 195 

Thou, all unaided and alone, 

Didst take thy way in life's young years, 
With no kind hand clasped in thy own, 

No gentle voice to soothe thy fears. 
But thy high heart no power could tame, 

And thou hast never ceased to feel 
Within thy veins a sacred flame 

That turned thy iron nerves to steel. 

I know that thou art not exempt 

From all the weaknesses of earth ; 
For passion comes to rouse and tempt 

The truest souls of mortal birth. 
But thou hast well fulfilled thy trust, 

In spite of love and hope and fear ; 
And even the tempest's thunder-gust 

But clears thy spirit's atmosphere. 

Thou still art in thy manhood's prime, 

Still foremost 'mid thy fellow-men, 
Though in each year of all thy time 

Thou hast compressed three-score and ten. 
* Oh, may each blessed sympathy, 

Breathed on thee with a tear and sigh, 
A sweet flower in thy pathway be, 

A bright star in thy clear blue sky. 



ON A BOOK OF VERSES. 

TO ALICE M'CLURE GRIFFIN, 

DEAR ALICE, for two happy hours, 
I've sat within this little nook 
To muse upon the sweet soul-flowers 

That blossom in thy gentle book. 
They lift their white and spotless bells, 

Untouched by frost, unchanged by time, 
For they are blessed immortelles 
Transplanted from the Eden clime. 

With pure and deep idolatry 

Upon each lovely page I Ve dwelt, 
Till to thy spirit's sorcery 

My spirit has w T ith reverence knelt. 
Oh, every thought of thine to me 

Is like a fount, a bird, a star, 
A tone of holy minstrelsy 

Down floating from the clouds afar. 

The fairies have around thee traced 
A circle bright, a magic sphere — 



ON A BOOK OF VERSES. 197 

The home of genius, beauty, taste, 
The joyous smile, the tender tear. 
Within that circle, calm and clear, 

With Nature's softest dews impearled, 
I sit and list, with pitying ear, 

The tumults of the far-off world. 

Thy book is shut ; its flowers remain, 

'Mid this mysterious twilight gloom, 
Deep-imaged on my heart and brain, 

And shed their fragrance through my room. 

Ah, how I love their holy bloom, 
As in these moonbeams, dim and wan, 

They seem pale blossoms o'er a tomb 
That 's closed upon the loved and gone. 

Young angel of my waning years,* 

Consoler of life's stormiest day, 
Magician of my hopes and fears, 

Guide of my dark and troubled way, 

To thee this little votive lay, 
In gratitude I dedicate ; 

And with an earnest spirit pray 
God's blessing on thy mortal state. 

* At Mr. Griffin's house in Louisville, after his own home was 
broken up, Mr. Prentice was treated with filial tenderness by 
both Mr. and Mrs. Griffin. 



VIOLETS. 

ACCEPT, my friend, these violets blue, 
Once wet with morning's silver dew, 
Now fading mournfully away, 
Yet lovely still in their decay. 
Young nurselings of a Southern land, 
They came from gentle beauty's hand, 
And I will send them now to rest 
On gentler beauty's angel breast. 

And there, oh, dear one ! let them sleep, 

By day, at eve, in midnight deep, 

Soothed in their flower-dreams soft and sweet 

By thy young heart's delicious beat ; 

And I shall think of them and thee, 

And deeply, long with both to be, 

Feeling perchance a sad regret 

That I am not a violet. 

But of these flowers, dear lady, take 
The loveliest one, and, for my sake, 



VIOLETS. 



199 



Within the book thou lovest best, 
Let its poor, fading leaves be pressed ; 
Then keep it through the coming years, 
Oft nurtured by thy smiles and tears, 
And let it ever, ever be 
Love's token-flower from me to thee. 



THOUGHTS ON THE FAR PAST. 

^WRITTEN AMID THE RUINS OF THE OLD SPANISH MISSION-HOUSE 
NEAR SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.] 

AMID these ruins, gloomy, ghostly, strange, 
The weird memorials of an elder time, 
The sacred relics of dead centuries, 
I stand in utter loneliness ; and thoughts 
As solemn as the mysteries of the deep 
Come o'er me, like the shadow of a cloud 
O'er the still waters of a lonely lake, 
Or like the mournful twilight of eclipse 
O'er the dim face of Nature. 

Ye were reared, 
Oh ruins old, by stern and holy men — 
God's messengers unto a new-found world — 
Whose voices, like the trumpet of the blast, 
Resounded through the forests, and shook down, 
As by an earthquake's dread iconoclasm, 
The idols that men worshipped. Their great lives 
Were given to awful duty, and their words 



THOUGHTS ON THE FAR PAST. 201 

Swelled, breathed, and burned and throbbed upon the an- 

In solemn majesty. They did not shrink 

Or falter in the path of thonrand rock 

Their souls marked out. Their moldered relics lie 

Beneath yon humble mounds ; but ah, their names,, 

There rudely sculptured upon blocks of stone, 

Are breathed on earth with reverential awe, 

And written by God's finger on His scroll 

Of saints and martyrs. 

Age has followed age 
To the abysses of Eternity ; 
And many generations of our race 
Have sprung and faded like the forest leaves ; 
The mightiest temples reared by human pride 
Have long been scattered by a thousand storms — 
But ye remain. Ah yes, ye still remain, 
And many pilgrims yearly turn aside 
From their far journeyings, to come and pause 
Amid your shattered wrecks, as lone and wild 
As those of Tadmor of the desert. Wolves 
Howl nightly in your ghostly corridors, 
And here the deadly serpent makes his home. 
Yet round your broken walls, your fallen roofs, 
Your many crumbling, shattered images, 
Your sunken floors, your shrines with grass o'ergrown, 
And the unnumbered strange, mysterious flowers, 
That stand, pale nuns, upon your topmost heights, 



202 THOUGHTS ON THE FAR PAST 

Wild chants and soul-like dirges seem to rise, 

And the low tones of eloquence and prayer 

Seem sounding on the hollow winds ; and here 

I kneel as lowly as I could have knelt, 

If I had listened to the living words 

Your grand old founders uttered in the name 

Of God, who sent them to proclaim His will. 




TO LITTLE VIRGILINE GRIFFIN. 

YOU are a charming little sprite, 
A thing of love and joy and light, 
You 're full of sweetness and of grace ; 
Sweet is your name, more sweet you face, 
So you shall be our baby queen, 
Oh, dearest little Virgiline. 

You 're sweeter than the sweetest rose 
That in the early spring-time blows ; 
You 're sweeter than the violet 
When its young leaves w T ith dews are wet- 
Your very sighs more sweet by half 
Than any other baby's laugh ; 
Your counterpart was never seen, 
Oh, darling little Virgiline. 

Should I awake from visions bright, 
In the deep silence of the night. 
And see a form before me rise, 
Like that which gladdens now my eyes, 
Oh, I should think it was a fair 



204 TO LITTLE VIRGILINE GRIFFIN. 

And blessed angel of the air, 
A being sent down from the skies 
To dry my tears, to hush my sighs, 
And toward the vision I would lean 
With rapture, loveliest Virgiline. 

Within the dark depths of your eyes, 
As in the blue depths of the skies, 
I gaze with ecstasy, and lo ! 
Bright, winged things flit to and fro, 
And their rich music-tones are flung 
Like bird-notes when the year is young. 
Ah, dear one, if you are so good 
And beautiful in babyhood, 
If you have such bewitching power 
Ere your life's bud has burst to flower, 
What will you be at sweet sixteen ? — 
Canst tell me, baby Virgiline ? 




ON THE SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA MADRE. 

PERCHED like an eagle on this kingly height, 
That towers toward heaven above all neighboring 
heights, 
Owning no mightier but the King of kings, * 

I look abroad on what seems boundless space, 
And feel in every nerve and pulsing vein 
A deep thrill of my immortality. 
How desolate is all around ! No tree, 
Or shrub, or blade, or blossom, ever springs 
Amid these bald and blackened rocks ; no wing 
Save the fell vulture's ever fans the thin 
And solemn atmosphere ; no rain e'er falls 
From passing clouds — for this stupendous peak 
Is lifted far above the summer storm, 
Its thunders and its lightnings. As I hold 
Strange converse with the Genius of the place, 
I feel as if I were a demi-god, 
And waves of thought seem beating on my soul 
As ocean billows on a rocky shore 
O'erstrown with moldering wrecks. 



206 SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA MAD RE. 

I look abroad, 
And to my eyes the whole world seems unrolled 
As 'twere an open scroll. . The beautiful, 
Grand, and majestic, near and far, are blent 
Like colors in the bow upon the cloud. 
Illimitable plains, with myriad flowers, 
White, blue, and crimson, like our country's flag; 
The green of ancient forests, like the green 
Of the old ocean wrinkled by the winds ; 
Cities and towns, dim and mysterious, 
Like something pictured in the dreams of sleep ; 
A hundred streams, with all their wealth of isles, 
Some bright and clear, and some with gauze-like mists 
Half-veiled like beauty's cheek ; tall mountain-chains, 
Stretching afar to the horizon's verge, 
With an intenser blue than that of heaven, 
Forever beckoning to the human soul 
To fly from pinnacle to pinnnacle 
Like an exulting storm-bird : these, all these, 
Sink deep into my spirit like a spell 
From God's own Spirit, and I can but bow 
To Nature's awful majesty, and weep 
As if my head were waters. 

Fare-thee-well, 
Old peak, bold monarch of the subject clouds, 
That crouch in reverence at thy feet ; I go 
Afar from thee — to stand where now I stand 



SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA MADRE. 207 

Oh, nevermore. Yet through my few brief years 

Of mortal being, these wild wondrous scenes, 

On which thou gazest out eternally, 

Will be a picture graven on my life, 

A portion of my never-dying soul. 

What God has pictured Time may not erase. 




NEW ENGLAND. 

FOR A CELEBRATION IN KENTUCKY OF THE LANDING 
OF THE PILGRIMS. 

CLIME of the brave ! the high heart's home !- 
Laved by the wild and stormy sea ! 
Thy children, in this far-off land, 

Devote, to-day, their hearts to thee ; 
Our thoughts, despite of space and time, 
To-day are in our native clime, 
Where passed our sinless years, and where 
Our infant heads first bowed in prayer. 

Stern land ! we love thy woods and rocks, 
Thy rushing streams, thy winter glooms, 

And Memory, like a pilgrim gray, 
Kneels at thy temples and thy tombs : 

The thoughts of these, where'er we dwell, 

Come o'er us like a holy spell, 

A star to light our path of tears, 

A rainbow on the sky of years. 



NE W ENGLAND. 209 

Above thy cold and rocky breast 

The tempest sweeps, the night-wind wails, 

But Virtue, Peace, and Love, like birds, 
Are nestled 'mid thy hills and vales ; 

And Glory, o'er each plain and glen, 

Walks with thy free and iron men, 

And lights her sacred beacon still 

On Bennington and Bunker Hill. 




ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE 
CLAY STATUE 

AT LOUISVILLE, KY., MAY 30, 1S67.* 

HAIL ! true and glorious semblance, hail ! 
Of him, the noblest of our race. 
We seem, at lifting of thy veil, 

To see again his living face ! — 
To hear the stirring words once more, 

That like the storm-god's cadence pealed 
With mightier power from shore to shore 
Than thunders of the battle-field. 

Lo ! that calm, high, majestic look, 

That binds our gaze as by a spell — 
It is the same that erst-while shook 

The traitors on whose souls it fell ! 
Oh, that he were again in life ! — 

To wave, as once, his wand of power, 
And scatter far the storms of strife 

That o'er our country darkly lower ! 

* Sung at the time by a chorus of one hundred voices. 



UNVEILING OF THE CLAT STATUE. 211 

Again, again, and yet again, 

He rolled back Passion's roaring tide, 
When the fierce souls of hostile men 

Each other's wildest wrath defied. 
Alas ! alas ! dark storms at length 

Sweep o'er our half- wrecked Ship of State, 
And there seem none with will and strength 

To save her from her awful fate ! 

But thou, majestic image, thou 

Wilt in thy lofty place abide, 
And many a manly heart will bow 

While gazing on a nation's pride ; 
And, while his hallowed ashes lie 

Afar beneath old Ashland's sod, 
One gaze at thee should sanctify 

Our hearts to country and to God. 

We look on thee, we look on thee, 

Proud statue, glorious and sublime, 
And years, as if by magic, flee — 

And leave us in his grand old time i 
Oh, he was born to bless our race 

As ages after ages roll ! 
We see the image of his face — 

Earth has no ima^e of his soul ! 



212 UNVEILING OF THE CLAY STATUE. 

Proud statue ! if the nation's life, 

For which he toiled through all his years, 
Must vanish in our wicked strife, 

And leave but groans and blood and tears — 
If all to anarchy be given, 

And ruin all our land assail, 
He'll turn away his eyes in Heaven, 

And o'er thee we will cast thy veil ! 




ADDRESS 

AT THE OPENING OF A NEW THEATER IN LOUISVILLE, KY., 
MARCH 25, 1867.* 

FOR long, long years, all past but not forgot, 
A modest temple rose upon this spot, 
Devoted to the Drama's noble art — 
To give amusement and to touch the heart, 
To wield at will with passion's strong control, 
To mould the feelings, to exalt the soul, 
To kindle thoughts allied to hope and fear, 
To wake Joy's smile and holy Pity's tear. 
The sinking sun upon that temple shone : 
The sun arose — lo ! 'twas forever gone ! 
At night's deep moon, when all the circling air 
Was gentle as the cadences of prayer, 
Where naught was heard above, beneath, around, 
Save yonder waterfall's low, solemn sound, 
Borne like a tone of mystery and dread 

* Recited by Miss Dargon. 



214 ADDRESS. 

Through what might seem a city of the dead — 

At that calm hour, beneath the star's sweet ray, 

The fell Fire-spirit seized upon his prey ; 

No help, no mortal help, alas ! was nigh — 

The flames sprang upward toward the reddened sky ; 

High in their burning chariots seemed to roam 

The Muses, wailing for their perished home ; 

The clouds above in crimson glory stood, 

As if surcharged with awful showers of blood. 

But soon the wild and lurid scene was o'er — 

The flames sank down, the temple was no more. 

But look ! upon this spot to memory dear, 

What beauty and magnificence appear ! — 

Up from the blackened ashes, bleak and cold, 

A temple rises, nobler than the old ; 

Heaven guard it well, and may its pride remain 

Till hoar antiquity its walls shall stain. 

And proudly, now, ye good, and brave, and fair, 
We consecrate it to your generous care. 
Here, oft will glow the floating dancer's skill ; 
Here, music sweet your living heart-chords thrill ; 
Here, histrionic genius' lightning-flame 
Awake the thunders of your loud acclaim ; 
And flowers of beauty spring, forever new — 
Your smiles the sunshine, and your tears the dew. 



ADDRESS. 215 

And here, diffusing mirth and tender pain, 

The Comic and the Tragic Muse will reign : 

Here, poor old Lear, all desolate, will bow 

His snow-white hair on dead Cordelia's brow, 

And raise his tottering form — weak, worn, and frail — 

To dare the rain, the thunder, and the gale ; 

Here, Shylock, grim, with heart too hard to feel, 

Will lift his scales and whet his cruel steel ; 

Here, Hamlet, gloomy, but with heart of fire, 

Avenge the murder of his royal sire ; 

Here, Richard, in his wild affright, will leap 

From the red vision of his horrid sleep, 

And see, with wild and frenzied soul and eye, 

The ghosts of murdered victims trooping by ; 

Here, weird Macbeth will vainly seek to clasp 

The airy dagger in his desperate grasp, 

And his fiend-mate, despairing, strive in vain 

From her curst hands to wash the murder-stain ; 

Here, Juliet, from her balcony, bend low 

To see and hear her much-loved Romeo — 

Return him tear for tear, and sigh for sigh, 

And hail it her last joy with him to die ; 

Here, girdled Falstaff laugh, with wheezing breath — 

Mercutio jest, e'en in the arms of death ; 

And Rosalind, pure, beautiful, and good, 

Thread the dark mazes of the tangled wood. 



216 ADDRESS. 

Aye, we will group within our ample plan, 
All fancies of " the myriad-minded man". 

If we have done, and still do, well our parts, 

Our proud appeal is to your hands and hearts : 

We ask your favor ; it will be our task 

To render back the worth of all we ask, 

And make our new-born Temple's honored name 

A portion of your goodly city's fame. 




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